Gordian Quest

I want to say this is more like a neutral review. I'm still going through the campaign, but it really does feel like the most important part of the game, the deck building, plateaus at the end of Act 1??! (Spoiler: I think there's 4 acts in total). Unless there's some crazy new change to the cards after you cap them out or if equipment alters how my cards work, my 3 characters' decks are done. Upgrading the cards only change numerical values, so I guess I'm going to be doing the same thing over and over for the rest of the game? Edit: So I finished the game after 40 hours and something clearly went wrong during development because the pacing was horrible. Everything was decently planned out in the first 2 Acts and then it just went downhill from there. And something CLEARLY went wrong with the creation of Act 4, because it took maybe 20 minutes in my 40 hours of gameplay. Builds: Decent array of choices for archetypes, but a lot of the cards in each 'class' does the same thing or a variant of the same thing. 'Hit for X', 'Hit for X but twice', and etc. Poison, Chill, Burn, Shock just does the same thing except that Chill gave a 20% dmg debuff?? Character Syngergy: Almost nonexistent. The characters and their builds don't really interact much at all; they just kind of do their own thing. Yes, you can stack characters that apply poison/bleed/shock, but outside of their own stuff there isn't much that takes advantage of that. I guess you need a pure dmg dealer to break guard to apply statuses, but even then you can just slot runes or take masteries that bypass guard anyways. Business as usual. Itemization: Finding good gear was the worst part of the game. Outside of the interesting Unique/Legendary items that took some hours to get each or if you're lucky in events, everything else just sucked and I never really saw the point of them even during the last act (I was still getting majority items like +2 to Dex common items). D20 mechanic: This was an unneccesary and irritating mechanic in the game. I don't say thing because I hate variation or chance, I hate it because it doesn't make anything interesting happen. If you pass, you get hit with exhaustion (which locks some cards out of your build) and get like 200 exp (you need like 5000 to level up). If you fail, you get hit with exhaustion AND take dmg. It just gets old really quickly. Story: Act 1 was easy to follow and decently interesting, but after that? It just went everywhere. Complete nonsense. Replayability: With the Realm mode (free exploration/progression) and the PvP mode, there is some replayability here. Campaign mode? Forget it. I will admit my builds were actually finished at the end of Act 2, which was much better than what I initially thought. Verdict: I grudgingly give this a positive review. I spent a decent enough time and had enough fun for the sales price of like 9 USD. I think the devs really was on track to make a fantastic game, but maybe funding or development time just put a stop to that. Would be interested in what they make after this.