There's so much left out of this game that it seems more like an alpha rules draft than a finished product. Zero rules about how combat actually works. Zero player character construction examples. Repetitious, missing, or incorrect page reference entries in the index. No summaries of powers or special rules (and there are A LOT of special rules).

One thing that struck me is the narrowness of the implied play structure. While this isn't explicitly addressed in the book (along with so many other things), it seems as if every play session is meant to be exactly the same: the players have their characters find clues by using their skills (for which no other use is mentioned in the book), go confront the villain and/or his underlings, and fight. It's like the old Batman TV series.

I am aware of the example of play you can download from Drivethrurpg, but the problem is that it too is only a partial artifact. It's not annotated to reference the rules or explain terms, and the character sheets of the players are not included so you can't see from where numbers or dice or anything is derived. It's a Catch-22: you kind of need to know the game system already to follow along with the example, but if you already know the system you don't need to be reading the example in the first place. It appears it's a hybrid of dice use and diceless concepts, and that REALLY needs some detailed explanation in the rules.

I enjoyed the artwork, especially the different styles. The layout is generally good (although the typeface used for Power Moves is basically unreadable). There are some amusing and different special rules (for instance, the Brick Archetype's “Puny Villain” Power Move lets you grab a villain and use him to swat other villains). The asymmetrical approach to character construction provides a different and stimulating way to think about your character's powers, but with no guidance whatsoever from the authors regarding how to artfully and effectively use these tools, you're on your own.

Overall, I felt letdown buying a supers RPG book that to my mind is an incomplete draft and not a finished product.

Just received my hard copy but have been playing around with the digital version already.

This game is the most fun I've had in character creation in a long time. I love the fact that, because the game is built around accommodating all the different flavours of superhero out there, creativity in character design is rewarded. I can come up with an opportunistic ex-military Green Lantern knockoff (considering calling him the Blue Torch for funsies), a creepy plant-woman made of sentient vines who unravels herself to swing between trees/buildings or to lash out at her enemies with whip-like attacks, a vast octopus-like alien who's Just Here to Help (please stop screaming and shooting), or a simple master of the noble boomerang, turn to S.M.A.S.H with the question: "Can I build that?" and the game will effectively say "sure you can, take these mechanics and run with it."

Character building is also streamlined enough that it is very easy to spend an evening alone with this book and come out with five different characters that you want to play now.

I've had great fun as a player and I'm looking forward to thrashing things out on the GM side of things as I lead some friends on an adventure in a certain established multiverse...