How do people here feel about Marvel Champions? I am an Arkham LCG person, but I thought having something less brain burning with less setup might be nice on occasion. It looks like Marvel does not require you to "keep up" with releases quite like most other lcgs? I don't want to have to buy everything basically. Any opinions are appreciated!
I enjoy Marvel LCG for what it is. It's a card game with a deck, a hand, a bunch of keywords, 'creatures', and the same kinds of considerations to make about timing and resource use.
It is an easier game than past LCG co-ops (like LOTR, which I find very hard), and I would guess that's the factor people's opinion will swing on. Personally, I enjoy the difficulty level of the game. I have not had to play with the harder variant rules for it. I still lose at it more than I win, but the game doesn't feel unfair.
Maybe it's a casual game, but I think it's definitely a more interesting casual game than like...Smash Up? Legendary? Sentinels of the Multiverse? This game feels more polished and complex than those. It's still got DNA from LOTR and Arkham, after all, but it's also doing its own thing. I do think liking the characters even a little (I like comics moderately) helps you enjoy the game.
The deck building is flexible enough to require little to no effort, while leaving the door open if you want to go deeper with it. This isn't like LOTR where you have to 'solve' a scenario by finding the right deck build for it. You will usually want to do big damage, which the preconstructed decks can do if played right.
The card pool isn't huge, but every expansion is trickling in some new ones. I disagree that the decks feel "samey" because you have to always keep 15 character cards - this is how they've made each character feel distinct, while allowing you like 35 other cards to do (almost) whatever you want with. There are certain character decks that are easier or harder to play than others. Each character varies in how they feel, kind of like learning a fighting game. The challenge of the game can come not just from the villain deck you're playing against, but also learning to work certain characters effectively.
The expansion buys are very straight-forward and they do less of the LCG scheme of "you need to buy a whole set of expansions to find the good synergies". They're just new, preconstructed decks, with some share of new cards to add to your overall card pool. It really comes down to whether you want a particular character with a new gimmick in your collection.
The villain expansions are more critical, since this is the stuff you will play against in the game, and these can also be customized to some degree (a villain deck is constructed from a couple different, interchangeable parts).
Overall, I'd say Marvel LCG is different enough from Arkham or LOTR that you're not gonna feel a lot of overlap. Whether the game's (relatively) laid back feel is gonna be worth it to you, is the thing to decide on. The core box has plenty to play around with (and no need to buy multiples) if you find a good price on that.