Which villains do you think are the most sympathetic?
And, a related question - which villains do you think are most likely to make temporary alliances with the heroes in order to fight an even greater evil?
I think one of the most sympathetic villains is Dawn. She's basically the Magneto of the Sentinels universe. I don't know if there is severe paranoia towards metahumans in the Sentinels universe, and or how much adversity Dawn has had to overcome in her life, but I imagine it's been quite a bit. The only part that would really make me question having sympathy with her is how she treated her daughter.
I'd also put the Dreamer pretty high on the list since she's just a child who does not have control of her powers and isn't intentionally evil.
Dreamer and Iron Legacy are both very sympathetic to me.
The Dreamer's just a poor kid who's wrapped up problems beyond her ken. Iron Legacy is motivated purely by tragedy and his inability to grieve in a healthy manner.
I don't feel bad for Dawn whatsoever. She casts her own kid out because ExPatriette doesn't have metahuman powers? That's just harsh. And where Magneto has the Holocaust-tragedy angle, Dawn's metahuman superiority angle comes from pure egotism. According to her bio, she just "lost patience" with normal people; she wasn't the victim of tragedy or prejudice, ergo I have no sympathy for her.
I do feel bad for poor Aminia Twain. While vengeful, she's the victim of colliding time/dimensions. She needs a good friend to help her get back to her senses.
The Dawn-Magneto comparison is really great for this discussion. I have no sympathy for a 3 year old throwing a hissy fit, be they the leader of an army of x-gene mutants, or the leader of an army of metahumans living on dinosaur island. The constant whining from everyone in the x-men universe is pretty much the reason I avoid them.
Iron Legacy's story is... again kind of annoying. His bio even talks about how prepared Pauline was for her father's death in the main universe, to have Legacy bring his daughter into the world of the Freedom Five and to freak out when she dies is... well... annoying.
Completely agree with the dreamer though. Although is she technically disqulified from this as she's not actually a villain?
It could be argued that Omnitron is the way he(?) is due to programming, like HAL was - I mean, once he installs an empathy chip into himself he's just fine...so technically he ends up correcting the mistake his original designers made when they decided whey wanted a literal killing machine.
Interesting. That's definitely not how I saw IL's story. He freaked out not just because he lost his daughter but because, with her death, the Legacy was coming to an end with him. His entire life had been this role, and to see it end like this was catastrophic to him, as he believes the world needs it. He wanted to fix the world so it wouldn't need the Legacy any longer, and it would be fixed if it liked it or not. I don't know that I'd say he freaked out as much as he came to the cold, hard conclusion that he had to take drastic measures.
That's my perception, anyway. 
Considering Legacy and his line are full fledged American heros, I am not quite sure if there is any x-menish type paranoia toward meta humans. It is quite possible the Chairman and Pike Industrial providing super serums to criminals has the general public pretty worried though.
Of course, X-Men type paranoia doesn't even make sense within the Marvel universe. Apparently everyone has the innate ability to detect mutants from mutates, and automatically hates mutants.
And Spider-Man.
I've actually heard from Christopher that Dawn can be described (in an oversimplified way, granted) as very Magneto-esque, sans any sort of redeeming value. She is a megalomaniac bent on breaking non-metas and having meta-humanity do what they please with no consequences to their actions.
I feel intense, horrible, painful sympathy toward all of the Gene-Bound Minions. Especially the Psy-Weavers...considering they're just brains trapped in monstrous centipede...things. They're just tragic. And the Shock Infantry...the maniacal expression on his face and the quote from Tempest is just soul crushing.
Yeah, Dawn is certainly written to be an unsympathetic Magneto, what with the fact that she didn't actually care about helping other metahumans (she just wanted to hide out with the dinosaurs) until some random fugitives showed up to start worshipping her and she decided to make an army, the insane glare she's sporting in all her art, the way she treated her daughter (and rumors that she killed the father for "failing" by siring an unpowered child), etc.
In fact, Sentinels seems to work pretty hard to avoid any sympathetic villains. They're all brutally amoral, clearly insane, totally devoid of any comprehensible thoughts and reasons, or just psychotically self-absorbed. The only exceptions so far are, as mentioned, victim of circumstances The Dreamer, and fallen hero Iron Legacy. And Iron Legacy's sympathy bid really is questionable - lots of people throughout history have had to see their children die, or the business their family built for generations go under, or the country they cared so much about be destroyed, and managed somehow to not go postal about it. Can we really hold our "Finest Legacy" to a lower standard just because, what, he cares more? Hmmmmm.
But that looks like it'll change soon! Based on what we know now*, Proletariat sounds like the real deal. He was legitimately dedicated to his government, and gained powers (at personal risk) in its name... but then they put him on ice, and forgot about him. He's practically a Soviet Captain America, only his hiatus was due not to a heroic sacrifice, but being directly betrayed by the ideals he stood for. That's pretty darn sympathetic - I intend to take a crack at a playable Proletariat hero deck, once I've seen the Vengeful Five.
Ironic
* This is a heavy caveat - based on her released blurb, I expected Kismet to be a classy catburglar type, instead of a psychotic addict.
Oh that's been confirmed. She really did kill the guy.
The villain I feel is most sympathetic is Spite. All he wants to do is suck out everyone's life force and do drugs. Is that really so bad?
I think I would have to go with Matriarch. It's her parents who constantly harped on her for not being as good as her cousin that made her go down the life of crime.
The most likely villain I see helping out the heroes would be Omnitron, give him a hundred years and i'm sure he'll realize the error of his ways.
Agreed. Seriously, what parents compare a jaded teenager to a super-scientist superhero who has revolutionized multiple fields and is the fastest woman alive!? As far as I'm concerned, THEY'RE the real villains.
No love for The Operative?
She was a student of Mr Fixer who just got pushed down the wrong when he gave up, it's all his fault that she didn't turn out to be an ally rather than a nemesis.
I would consider the (closest to) sympathetic villains to be:
Dreamer: Just a kid with no control over her powers.
Miss Information: she's a victim of the time cataclysm
Iron Legacy: he's overzeoulous and brutal, but his goal is (in his mind) altruistic/necessary.
Matriarch: she's young enough that she could conceivably be reformed as she matures
And I'd the see the following as villains who might, in the right circumstances, be open to helping the heroes.
La Capitan: a thrill seeking pirate, but probably open to alliances
The Operative: Sort of a victim of circumstance; she's almost sympathetic. However, she's also extremely rational. I could easily see her (and the Chairman) chipping in against a bigger problem, but still trying to profit from it.
Kismet: She sounds like a sociopath, but one who might form an alliance for the fun of it.
Ambuscade: Morally, he's no more sympathetic than Spite (hell, Spite has an excuse - he's completely crazy. Ambuscade is just a sociopath). However, I could see him actually forming an alliance against a bigger evil, but not for moral reasons, just to satisfy his own ego.
Wow, harsh. Apparently, every person who has ever known somebody that became a violent criminal is directly responsible for this fact, while the criminals themselves are innocent. (Granted, I suspect that Fixer blames himself just as much as you do, but it sounds pretty silly to me.
I suppose The Matriarch is somewhat sympathetic, if one grants that she's just a confused kid and is flipping out with the mask for a relatively short time (or being posessed by it). Her actions are as reprehensible as many others, but even supervillains probably get an exception for being a minor - again, assuming her villainous career is relatively brief.
I find Miss Information to be less sympathetic than Spite, so I am deeply confused by the outpouring of votes for her, here. Either she is completely insane (see: Spite), or her reasoning boils down to: "the superheroes dared to put the needs of the few above the needs of me personally. As the most important thing in the universe, I must kill them for their arrogance, even in a timeline where they haven't even done that!" I just don't see a good way to spin that.
Almost anyone might ally with the heroes under the right circumstances, though - in my games, we're about to have a big fight between Iron Legacy and all the heroes who could get there in time - assisted by none other than Baron Blade!
Ironic
I wanna say her villain career is short. For the sole purpose that she doesn't appear very often outside her own deck. Unless I have missed something, I think Haka's Savage Mana is the only other card that depicts the Matriarch. Of course Chairman hasn't appeared outside of his deck either, but we already know for a fact he has been carrying a career as a villain for a few life times.
The only villains that have not made an appearance in Shattered Timelines are Matriarch, Chairman, Voss, and Baron Blade. I think we can actually account for each of these other than Matriarch. Chairman may still be in the shadows and have yet to be discovered, if he has than maybe he is recoverying. Voss is currently in another dimension or something as seen by NightMist's Mistbound. While Baron Blade is most likely wrapping up his formation of the Vengeful Five. The Matriarch though? Who really knows, perhaps she is in juvie. Or maybe she is being taught by someone to be set on the right path.
Very much this. The fact that he can't handle a scenario that was from the very start very likely makes me think less of Iron Legacy altogether.
About his whole lineage being done after her death… well that was a risk that was always there. It was a risk he himself took when he was out fighting crime before Young Legacy was born. If he was that concerned about lineage he should have kept her in the sidelines until she herself had a kid.
Bottom line. You don't put your daughter in life-threatening situations by raising her to be a member of the FF and then totally betray all your principles when she dies.
Akash'Bhuta is just doing her job. She's a chaos entity, and frankly the Final Wasteland is kind of awesome, and I like to think that's Akash run wild. Just because her idea of creation isn't cohabitable by humans doesn't mean she's evil, just misunderstood.
The Matriarch is basically a teenager who is lashing out. Teenagers with Super Powers is bad for the world. You would hope that Meredith gets some time with her to help the kid out. She'd be an awesome hero. (and a super fun deck to play)
I'm sympathetic towards repair drone. Poor thing just wants to fix stuff, does a good job too.
Almost any villain would team up if they were threatened, unless they are crazy or not-human. I could see Voss going down before he'd accept help, but he would also use the heroes if it helped him. I couldn't see Blade helping Legacy, he'd rather destroy the world than do that, Akash and Plague Rat probably wouldn't be able to.
The ones I could see helping when they weren't directly threatened would be The Matriarch, Kismet, and Iron Legacy if it was a threat to the world he couldn't handle alone. I could see a redemption storyline where he needed the Freedom six to help stop a tougher Grand Warlord Voss invasion, and working with his them could make him look differently at things. Of course I think Vengence kind of puts the Iron Legacy line out, as Baron Blade is alive, I can't imagine him surviving in the Iron Legacy timeline.
Iron Legacy is what could of happened, while Vengeance is what does happen. Or something like that. The main time line is the one we are on the ride for, the one which Legacy dies and Young Legacy will take his place. Iron Legacy's back story says that he pulverizes Baron Blade until he was no more.
I do not think Legacy will end up dieing in our main timeline like he is supposed to. Grandpa Legacy falling into a timeportal and showing up randomly probably has an impact on how the Vengeance narritive will play out. Thats not even mentioning the presence of Dark Visionary who screws the main timeline up more than Ganpappy does.