Not much to say about the wider conversation here, but I just want to chime in to support your position. I read that article you posted, and I was kinda chuckling to myself at the author, who seems to be at least a casual fan of deckbuilder type games, arguing that the devs are wrong, and that the cards were not a barrier to entry. Meanwhile, I’m sitting over here, looking at the copy I have in my steam library which has never been touched, specifically because I heard it was a deckbuilder and immediately lost all interest. This despite the otherwise fairly positive reception the game got, and the hundreds of hours I’ve spent in Firaxis style tactical strategy games.

Sometimes I wish I knew why I have such a mental block about deckbuilding. I think the layers of strategy become too abstract for me to visualize what I’m trying to pull off, and it feels artificial in a way that rubs me the wrong way. Even if a 3 turn cool down on an ability is no less artificial, it doesn’t irk me in the same way.

And for the record, I didn’t buy the game just to never play it, its a family library copy! I’m not that wasteful.