Had the pleasure of playing this great game @ GenCon today. So, I can't say everything I tell here will hold true when the game comes out but this is how it went.

The miniatures look great. IMO, better than Heroclix Infinity Challenge and probably close to their current level. Only Thing looked pale/jaundiced to me. Otherwise, great minis.

So, each one picks a team and the arch villain of the team located to your left. You receive a few cards representing the Heroes Resources and the Villains (I don't remember the name of these cards) "resources". Place each hero in the middle of their respective "sheet". Same for archvillain.

The game is played in 5 turns, each divided in five rounds. The 5 or 6 areas of Manhattan are assigned 1 "mission" each. Each mission can be: Crime, Danger or Mystery and each of these can be: fight, protection, mystic and a few other abilities. Each mission has a trouble level and may or may not have the chance of the archvillain showing up.

After these are assigned, you go to the planning phase and spend your available plot points making your characters "ready" (primary attacker, you pay plot points equal to his level) or support (you pay 1 plot point per character). You can also spend points to use your allies (from the resource cards).

Then the 1st round finally starts. You can then: move, take a story action, medical action or "troubleshoot" an area where you moved a ready character.

First, you usually move your characters to the area you will try to tackle the mission.

Second is usually the combat round. First you define what is going to be the trouble level. It is essentially how many points the other players will have available to use against you. You may decrease this, having the team with the correct abilities. Each of the other players draw 1 extra villain resource card. The player to your left has the chance to play the primary villain. Once someone plays a primary villain, the other players may play supporting villains until all the players had the chance or the points were all spent. The heroes have initiative when the battle starts. The hero and the primary villain reveal simultaneously which move they will use. Each has an attack, defense and outwit rating. The hero roll the dice equal to his attack and the villain equal to his defense. If the hero ties or beats the villain's roll, the villain receives 1 KO token which may be enough in some cases. If the villain is still alive, it swings back the same way. If both are still alive, there is the outwit roll. Each rolls dice equal to the o/w rating and who gets the highest gives the other guy a KO token and gets initiative next round if both are still standing.

If the Villain wins, the hero returns to his card with a KO token and can be healed with a medical action. If it is a "most wanted" it will stay as an available villain to every player until the end of the game.

If the Hero wins, it gets the victory points. If it is the appropriate mission, it has now to face the archvillain who starts with the initiative. If the archvillain wins it may advance its master plot which, I believe, gives him some special capabilities. If the hero wins, the team wins one of its 3 special cards which are quite powerful. The archvillain has also the option to increase the trouble level of the initial encounter and also something else that I can't remember. If the hero is not fully KO'ed (most can take one or two KO's before losing) the Hero is automatically fully healed after the battle.

Third round, if you have a different ready hero you can move to another mission and "fight" again in the fourth or fifth round. Since we only played one full turn this essentially didn't happen. So, people would take a medical to make the KO'ed heroes available. Or, a story action: you draw a resource card and either rearrange the 4 visible story cards (to put one of yours in the final position) or advance the story (usually when yours is the final card) to get a victory point.

After 5 rounds the turn ends and the story automatically advances (giving the team of the final card a VP), each team gets plot points equal to its VPs plus available heroes (the ones not on the Manhattan board).

There is also a "theme" card that is drawn at the beginning of the game and I think is valid for the whole game but it is possible it is only valid for that given turn. It adds some special rules/conditions.

I thought this game was excellent. The Demo table was always full and as soon as a game ended there already 4 or more players ready to start the next one. They surprised most of us with a game that is not just a tactical miniature combat game and they delivered an enjoyable experience. I can't wait for this game to come out.

This sounds great. I've seen a lot of photos of people playing! Who else has played?

I also tried the game, and the two people I play with the most were able to demo it with me (my wife and my mother-in-law). In short, it was great. Yeah, the figures are okay, nothing to write home about, and you could tell that the board was a preproduction board, but man, the game was fun. M-I-L sent out Hulk and Cap to investigate a crime in the Bronx, where they met up with Rhino, who kicked Hulk's butt. It was great

When I head over to my comic book shop on Thursday I'm going to have him order this for me.

Thanks for the review!

Do you remember enough to go into a little detail about the Story deck? Is it just that whoever scores their story gets a VP, or are there additional happenstances associated with the movement / scoring of the cards?

Also, were any of the various alternate scenarios described to you?

Thanks!

I'm also curious to know if you think this game would work well 2-player?

Alright from what I get, your hero starts out on his stat card. Then you use plot points to make him/her ready. Now, you can move the hero. Can you move the hero to any location in manhattan, aka teleport around?? Or do you move the hero onto the board to any location and then when there in manhattan and they get readied a round later they have a set of movement points?? Or do you move them anywhere onto the board and then when there on the board and you move them again they can move anywhere in manhattan?? Or last senerio I guess would be, they move from there stat card to a specific location in manhattan?? Sorry that was confusing, basically I'm asking how does moving your characters work??

You pay the points and move them to the ready position on the character's card. When it is your time to play again then you may move it to a place in Manhattan. Ordinarily, after dealing with the trouble there, this character won't be able to go anywhere else until the next turn starts again (the game has 5 turns each with 5 "rounds" - I don't know if the word round is actually used in the game) unless a special ability or something else would allow it.

The game should work just fine for 2 people. This is actually how I plan to play it the most of the time.