[Poindexter]

I've been playing this darn game for more than a few months now, and win or lose, I just never feel like I had a whole lotta fun.
Am I alone here?

[All4BigGuns]

Gotta concur entirely.

It's not really all that enjoyable--just an exercise in frustration.

[graven2002]

Satisfaction might be a better word to describe what I feel after a game.
There may be fun chaotic moments, but overall (especially after a difficult win) I feel a sense of accomplishment. 
If I had to compare it to action movies:  less like Deadpool, more like John Wick.

[All4BigGuns]

It would be a much better game if it weren't set up in such a manner that no matter how well you're doing, one bad draw spells doom for the entire instance of playing.

[odd]

We have fun playing it, though All4BigGuns is right about how one card will just bone you no matter what.

[All4BigGuns]

Ya see, I don't see how anyone can have fun playing it with that tidbit. Just don't see any point in playing a game where a single bad draw means a guaranteed loss.

[odd]

We've only played 5-8 games and it doesn't happen every game.  Have you tried taking the worst out?

My wife and I were playing and the next turn we were going to win, we flipped over the event and it was "Everyone takes one at the end of the round" we knew she was going to go staggered on her turn so we were like "nooooooooooooooooooooo", but it was still fun.

[Mirikon]

In any card game, one bad draw is going to bone you. Happens in Yu-gi-oh, happens in Magic, happens in Poker. That's part of the game. If you don't enjoy it, then you simply don't have the soul of a gambler. Nothing wrong with that. Not every game works for everyone.

[TechnoGolem]

I find it fun but I will admit that it is not one of my go to games.

I think the games biggest problem is the ability to upgrade characters. In theory the idea is great but in practice it hurts the game. The problem is that the first time you do any run you will be underpowered and will probably end up losing the game. This high difficulty curve tends to drive away new players and are not willing to give it a second chance or struggle long enough to upgrade a character.

I think this game would have done better and be more enjoyable of most if they had stock runners that couldn't upgrade. This would allow for easier game balancing and would make the game easier from the start.

[graven2002]

Lol, the character progression / customization is one of my favorite things about Crossfire.  Different strokes I guess.
This game is accommodating to variations / house rules, you could always create your own stock runners.

[Horsemen]

Win or lose.  I've always had fun with this game.  It truly reminds me of a tough Shadowrun where some times you are forced to abort because of a complication.  It feels like Shadowrun and that makes the game worth it on another level.

We will be running a couple of campaigns this year and we do expect it to be slow at first but players want that over one-offs here and there.

Preferences vary of course.

[iduno]

It probably depends on where you're coming from on gaming.

I've played it with people who don't know Shadowrun, but like board games. They enjoy it as both a deck builder and as a puzzle-based cooperative game. They're also used to the randomness that comes with that type of game, and the high chance of losing with cooperative games.

It doesn't have quite enough Shadowrun flavor to be a great Shadowrun game for me, though.

The High Caliber Ops expansion lowers the randomness (or lets you mitigate it), but increases the difficulty a bit.

[Horsemen]

I have yet to play with the HCO expansion but plan to next month.  I am looking forward to it.

[DarkSpade]

My gaming group really enjoys it.  It can be brutally hard sometimes, but the result is less "why do we keep playing this?" and more, "I don't care if it's 1am we're not leaving until we get a win!"  Wins are very satisfying.  The last expac really spiced things up and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I fully agree about one card being able to royally screw you over.  It's often a painful crossfire card, or sometimes a normal obstacle that's clearly a misprinted hard obstacle.  I'm hoping a future expansion might thin out the rough crossfires.  I wouldn't mind a bad crossfire if I knew I had an equal chance at a good one.

[Tarislar]

I just got the game last week.

10 Games in, I agree w/ what A4BG said, its really annoying when you are crushing it & 1 card means a complete 100% reversal of the game.

The Blackmarket cards mostly seem balanced by points, few iffy ones but mostly balanced.

The Objectives however are badly balanced between Normal v/s Hard in some cases but also in just plain point cost v/s difficulty in killing it.

The Crossfire deck has too much "swing" between easy v/s hard as well.  I'd like to have seen them written to be a tad less painful.

That all said, I think a minor change to the rules that would balance out some of the above is to delay the Crossfire draw by 1 round.
So a 4 person acts like 3, 3 acts like 2, & a 2 person match doesn't draw till round 4.

That small change might have not left me with a "Win", that took 14 rounds, crossfire count of 11 & 18 dead obstacles of which 11 were Hards.