Thoughts on DC Deck Building Game?

My oldest’s birthday is coming up. He’s hard into superheroes right now, especially DC, so I was considering Cryptozoic’s deck builder as a gift. He’s turning eight but reads pretty well (can read Calvin and Hobbes on his own with occasional help on a bigger word).

Any thoughts? Is it a good idea? If so, what’s a good starting point among the myriad options?

Also thinking about Dice Masters on similar lines, if anyone wants to compare the two.

Thanks in advance.

I played with my kids a while back and I remember it being pretty decent, actually, despite some weird theme disconnects (why did Flash just buy the Batmobile from the market?). I think there might even be a co-op way to play? I liked that each person plays a unique character so you all have different abilities but it was weird to be competing with each other to defeat supervillains. Still, mechanically it was pretty solid and pretty fun.

I know he's more into DC but, oh man, Marvel Champions is legit the best superhero game on the market. It's a little more complex but it's fully co-op so you can team up with him and help him play.

I don't have any good alternative recommendations, so feel free to ignore, but I think the DC Deckbuilder was the worst deckbuilding game I ever played. Dominion is essentially athematic, but the DC Deckbuilding Game is actively ANTIthematic: instead of the setting helping explain things and enabling you to imagine neat things happen, here the setting has so little connection to what the cards do that I remember being filled with rage when I played it. It was if they took Ascension and then just put literally random DC art on all the cards. I wouldn't be surprised if that were close to what the design process actually was.

This was probably 10+ years ago though; I just looked at a card from the latest set and it says "put your hero on any space", so now apparently you have an avatar in the game? There's movement? That is completely different from when I played it. So who knows.

(Just looked at some old cards to confirm my memories: Wonder Woman draws you cards when you buy a villain, and Aquaman destroys cards in your discard pile. Just like in the comics!)

Dice Masters, unfortunately, made me feel exactly the same way.

I wasn't all that crazy about Marvel Champions, but it definitely fit the setting and is almost certainly the best superhero game I've played to date.

While the game has it's limitations, it feels about right for most 8 year olds, and probably won't outlast their attention span.

I rather enjoy it, and it's also got a Cartoon network version with some silly things people have to do (either physically or verbally) added on.

There's also LotR versions which go for surprising prices!

Insane Clown Posse also essentially ripped off the game design for their deckbuilder, which is surprisingly decent, for light filler. Probbably not a good choice for a kid though, but just mentioning it's nearly the same exact game as the DC deckbuilder.

The Marvel game doesn't even seem like it's in the same category to me, and also doesn't appeal to me at all.