Whether I'm playing in a group or setting up a solo round, I can't get enough Sentinels of the Multiverse. I absolutely love cooperative games because they are presented to the players as a puzzle just waiting to be solved. Completing the task before you comes down to communicating with your team and deciding your best course of action, even in situations where the best course might not be so clear. But unlike a lot of cooperative games, SotM creates an environment where everyone can find the role that suits them; for every playstyle, there is a hero deck out there with your name written all over it.
Sentinels sets itself apart from other cooperative games through the dense theme and wildly diverse cast of heroes and villains, ensuring that the "puzzle" is different every time you experience it. While most roles in a cooperative adventure involve minor differences (one character might get more movement while another gets to do X as a free action), each hero in Sentinels of the Multiverse changes the way you need to approach a situation. Every deck you pick up needs to be piloted differently and perfectly suits the hero you're representing. Expatriette is a gun-toting freedom fighter that uses different ammo types depending on the situation. The Visionary is a psychic that uses her precognitive abilities to manipulate the gameboard and slate the future in favor of her teammates. Half of the fun of Sentinels is finding that amazing team combination that can feed off of each other while realizing that some heroes just don't play well together. Legacy boosting Fanatic's or Nightmist's damage can cause more harm than help, while Visionary changing damage types can feed Ra or Absolute Zero some awesome kills.
My favorite hero is Nightmist, who uses both her health and extra cards in her hand as resources for her insanely powerful spells. She is a high risk, high reward character that is always exciting to wield. Nightmist is definitely a "game changer" as her wild damage can completely shift the balance of the fight, however, like all heroes, she is useless without the help of her teammates.
The award for Best Villain goes to Iron Legacy, hands down. The age-old, "Just how screwed would we be if the most powerful hero went bonkers" scenario has always intrigued me and the gameplay through the Iron Legacy fight reflects this perfectly. He gives you no breathers and crushes you into the ground before you even realize what's happening. It's a challenging battle that's extremely rewarding to beat when you finally assemble that perfect team of heroes.
Sentinels biggest strength, for me personally, is the engrossing story it tells through its cards, mechanics, and artwork. From the battle depicted on each card to the flavor text, it only takes a single glance to realize that there is a bigger story happening, and it's exciting to watch it unravel. The artstyle, overall, is warm and welcoming, usually paying homages to comic book classics. As a comic book fan who has been disappointed for years at the lack of decent super hero table top games, Sentinels of the Multiverse was an instant favorite and has remained so purely on its thematic merits alone.
I could say so much more, but I'll just end it by saying I'll be a lifelong fan of what Greater than Games has created and look forward to where the Multiverse is headed.