I've now beaten Marvel's Midnight Suns twice from scratch, and I still haven't had enough of the game. I have, however, kind of exhausted the content from the base game. I've been just hanging out in the endgame (where the game restarts you after beating it - right before the final battle), building up my decks and killing the same irritating enemies over and over again.
So I was pretty excited to hop into the new Deadpool DLC - The Good, The Bad, and The Undead - which players can buy outright or as part of the deluxe edition of Midnight Suns. The Deadpool stuff comes with the Merc with a Mouth himself, and a few other game upgrades and abilities. As can be expected, hanging out with Deadpool is a ton of fun, as he is a constant fountain of one-liners, though his sense of humor clearly hides the melancholy lurking at the heart of the character. Unfortunately, though, playing as Deadpool is a freakin' hassle, as he is wildly underpowered compared to similar characters, and his "El Fuego" abilities are nigh useless.
Deadpool enters the game with three fun new story missions, the best of which has him teaming with Blade to take out a group of vampyres - the game's new baddies. Deadpool spends the entire mission alternating between antagonizing Blade and hitting on him, both of which are fantastic to watch. All three missions are as good as any story missions you find in the base game, but they of course benefit from the additional chaos of being centered around Deadpool.
Back at the Abbey, Deadpool struggles to fit in with the rest of the gang, and often seems to be conflicted about whether he wants to even try. Conversations between Deadpool and the Hunter are some of the best moments in the DLC, as they cut through his schtick a little bit to reveal the tortured soul that lives inside that burnt, constantly-healing-but-not-all-the-way husk of a mutant. So yeah, Deadpool as a character is a very welcome breath of fresh air in the Abbey, which after 80-90 hours, has grown a bit stale.
Unfortunately, playing as Deadpool in combat just kinda sucks. I've played about ten missions with him now, grinding friendship levels and building up his deck into something I find halfway reasonable, but even now I find him dreadfully underpowered compared to the rest of the gang. His heroic point-building abilities are so weak-sauce that he might as well be slapping enemies with a fish, and he is absolutely useless at crowd control. Deadpool's few abilities that allow him to attack multiple enemies are so laughably weak that I find myself only using them when I am absolutely out of cards and redraws and have no other choice.
Deadpool has a side ability called "El Fuego", which allows him to build his powers up into something more powerful. Each kill gives him an El Fuego point, which increases the base attack of his cards. But if he takes even one hit, the meter resets, knocking his cards back down to the near-useless category. It gets to the point where, if I draw a handful of Deadpool cards at the beginning of a battle, I am filled with some mix of despair and malaise - certainly not the feeling a wildcard character like Deadpool should envoke.
Still, I had a good time diving back into Midnight Suns for some new material, and I'm greatly looking forward to the other three characters that are still to come (Venom, Morbius, and Storm). But I'm afraid that after I finish building Deadpool up to Friendship level five and unlock the rest of his abilities, he's going to be strictly second string. I can't imagine taking him into a battle on purpose when there are so many other, better options.
Marvel's Midnight Suns is now available on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
