Why I Haven't/Won't Choose a Review Score For SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

Oh boy, I don’t know how to start this. I’m sure that everybody has already read and listened to every review article and video they possibly want on this game. But, I might as well give my two cents as someone who basically lives off of live-service games and explain why it has taken this long to put out a review. I finished the game over a week ago and delved into the endgame a bit and I have a lot to say.

I’ve been playing a variety of life service games for a long time: Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, Warframe, and a handful of ongoing mobile card games and RPG games for many years. I understand the idea of grinding games like crazy and doing the same thing over and over again, day after day, year after year. That being said, I can’t believe that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is so not fun to play. But what blows my mind the most is that even with great characters, combat, and aesthetics, I was frequently bored, frustrated, and was actively annoyed by the game…and that was only during the campaign. The post game offered more loot and fun ways to grow, but again, it feels like a literal chore to play those missions and grind those levels. I would rather be watching reruns of The Office and fold laundry than play most of the missions of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

Now, this is quite the negative opener, and you and I would expect a fairly low score for this game. But let me explain why I am having a hard time giving it a grade of any kind. First of all, the game does look really nice. It isn’t top of the line, but it can look really relatively spectacular, especially the facial animations in the many cutscenes. In those cutscenes are actually well designed and entertaining characters. While the humor isn’t my cup of tea most of the time, the banter between characters gives them some real life and depth. Each character is not only unique in their design (obviously), but their traversal and combat mechanics can help them feel fairly different.

This springs me to my second positive thing about the game: the traversal. It felt super clunky at first, but after getting a handle on each character, I found my favorite (teleporting with Captain Boomerang is endlessly fun). But other reviewers and players are in love with other characters and their specific traversal types. This shows a lot of genuine, uniqueness and emphasis in style between the four characters. Unfortunately, though, traversal is basically the only thing that is unique about the characters. While they might have different weapons they can use and different abilities, the moment-to-moment gameplay is pretty much identical between the four of them. It is lots of fun to jump around from rooftop to rooftop weaving through the chaos and fighting enemies, but your style, and engagement/approach to missions and gameplay will feel very much the same, no matter which character you choose.

While the actual combat and movement can be very exciting (even if it is so similar between the four of them), it feels like it goes to waste because of how unintelligent the enemies are. But it’s not just bad AI enemies that makes this combat feel underwhelming, it is also the objectives and missions that players go on. Like I said at the beginning, I am used to playing the same game modes, killing the same enemies and running through the same missions for years and years in a variety of games (I’m talking easily over 7,000 hours in live service games in the last 6 years). But Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League feels like a new level of generic and uninspiring. Move the slow payload while enemies attack, gather the missing objects and dunk them in the middle while enemies attack, kill all the enemies in an area, and one or two more like that are all the mission variety you get in this game. All these missions are fine for exploring the world and generic grinding, but when they are also exactly what you do in the story line and end game (with bigger health bars and some time limits), it really makes you wonder what on earth the developers were actually developing for so long. The best way I can explain this empty phenomena is if you had crazy abilities, somewhat interesting guns, and unique mobility, but the whole game took place inside a training simulator. No, not like a Star Trek holodeck, more like a generic target range to try out your builds and weapons. The “training area” might look beautiful, but its targets cycle the same patterns and just get bigger health bars at the same rate that you get stronger. The game ultimately gives you all these powers and options with no genuinely fun/engaging/challenging encounters. 

This lastly brings me to the end-game, the live service aspect of Kill The Justice League. To not spoil anything, I’ll say that the end game is 110% baked into the main story’s ending, making it feel more like you are playing a long winded tutorial with some cool story beats that might/should lead to something more grand a long time from now in a later season. The actual end-game consists of players expected to play the same missions they have been since the beginning to gain a currency that they spend on special missions (same types as before with some difficulty modifiers) which get more and more difficult and reward “special” gear. I like that there are specific and slightly more creative challenges in these special missions, but the facts that they are just slightly altered versions of the campaign/general missions make them feel bland and boring 99% of the time.

So, why haven’t I just pushed out the review and given it the 4/10 that it probably deserves? Part of the reason is because of how good some parts are while other parts suffer. But another part, and a majority of the reason is because I 100% believe this game wasn’t designed to be a live-service game from the beginning. But because of corporate influence, the game was forced to have loads of microtransactions, become an everlasting game, and spread out the content as thinly as possible to feed players just enough to keep them interested. I think this game could have been really great if it was a game that ended under 20 hours with an added expansion or two that delved into the “endgame” plot. Rocksteady knows how to make complete experiences and fun encounters, but only in limited bursts. I can see the team trying to venture out and doing a good enough job with the task before them, but I’m sure a lot of them realized how the live service and missions were going to be received long before shipping the game.

I could go on and on about this game. My friends, wife, and family can attest to the endless amounts of comment I have about Kill the Justice League. But, it mainly boils down to the idea that this game suffers incredibly because it is trying to be a live service game. If the developers spent more time in making actual boss battles, unique enemies, and creative encounters with creative rewards, then this game could have honestly been pretty good, easily a 7 or 8 out of 10. But because of the bland mission design, legitimately annoying and dull boss battles, and mediocre loot, this becomes a chore to play while trying at every turn to make players stay engaged with shallow mechanics and systems. Overall, this is a testament to the issues of corporate influence in artistic design, becoming another cog in the wheel the is the “content” machine.