Well, you don't have to look at whatever cards they have laid out on the table ;). And it's possible they'll have something really convoluted in mind that you haven't thought of and which may involve other players doing stuff too (eg the Adept letting off a string of powers which involves letting someone else use something to help deal with the current problem). It's also easier if you are playing someone who supports other characters a lot to know what the other players are actually capable of - much easier to glance across at Unity's section of the table and see a bunch of bots sat there when you're trying to decide whom you should give a free card play to, for example ;). There is always plenty of talk in any game I play as we discuss what we should do - no-one ever tells anyone what they should be playing or anything and if they did I'd tell them off for it ;). When we've been playing at the London meets there are some people who seem to play with their hands hidden, but we tend to use a lot of decks that most other players present don't really know all that well anyway (owing to one of said players being a playtester who also happens to own all the Cauldron decks as well :D), so it probably wouldn't make much difference if we could see their cards or not ;).
You forgot has his own characters all printed in tiny font on plain white cards. :-)
Oh yes, I did think of that but I figured that as it's difficult enough to see the text on someone's cards when they're sitting at the other end of the table, I felt I didn't need to also add that they were text-only-on-a-white-background-and-therefore-all-look-much-the-same-at-a-glance ;).
You don't need to read the cards when you've played the video game enough times you recognize them just by the art :D
You don't even need the video game for that!
I play with my 5 year old. He still can't read but he grasps the concepts just fine. He likes to play Ra which is pretty straight forward.