The Bloody Inn fits some of the criteria - the theme is more macabre than geeky, and the components are pretty much cards, but the gameplay is pretty simple, whilst offering a lot of choices (as the cards may have multiple uses). Somewhat unbelievably, it's inspired by real events!
I was talking up Dragoon earlier…It looks like they are getting ready to do new orders for GenCon. They even have new colors for you, Spiff!
Honestly, I’m thinking of getting the new edition in addition to my PAX copy because my painted-metal pieces are all chipping and that metal plating looks sweet.
Sorry to necro this thread, but I've recently come to realize that the game I wanted to play is extremely similar to the 2006 Marvel Heroes boardgame which is sadly out of print. The game has teams of superheroes deploying throughout the city to solve headlines (quests) while fighting villains and ultimately coming up against their team's archvillain nemesis. Each player plays their own team of heroes while also playing the archnemesis of one of the other player's team of heroes, which sounds like a fun way to keep everyone involved in the action. If this game existed using the SotM IP, I'd buy it.
To echo others, Heroes Wanted is a pretty good fit for your demands, it's a superhero board game with hand management elements where you have all (bar one) of the cards availible to you from the start. These are used to take actions and to defend, you recover them with a rest action.
In theory the team works together to take down a supervillain, in practice each person is playing for fame (points), 4 of which are availible for knocking out other heroes. So you can choose to take down a minion or some health off the villain, but doing so could leave you vunerable to being stabbed in the back by the hero next to yours.
The best part, with the randomized heroes and villains, even the same scenario can feel different each time.
I flag you as spam!
Or rather I hope an admin sees this and deletes AnnaGreen's post.
Done!
And now please rise as we sing the Anthem of the Flag of Spam.
spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam SPAMITYYYY SPAAAAAAM OH SPAMITYYYY SPAAAAAAAM
Bloody Vikings...