TL;DR version -
Grab if you're super into card games or cyberpunk. Narrative's good, gameplay's familiar and smooth. Balancing and flow and repeatable content have issues, but it's not enough to detract from a diehard's appreciation of what's available. Not quite worth its retail price, so only get on sale.
For everyone who isn't super into card games or cyberpunk, this is better than most Steam offerings, but it's not remotely on par with a moddable, polished, rich offering like Slay the Spire, or past online PvE-heavy online card games. Gameplay's accessible and well-tutorialized, but the cyberpunk may feel a bit confusing to those not already familiar with general concepts. Get only at bargain, but do consider it at such.
Way-too-long-version (sorry!):
Excellent, but note the following unfinished elements:
Neon Arena, the game's currency farming/standard random opponent match setup, has three difficulties: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Hard sometimes fails to give rewards (at least, for my copy of the game)- once the initial currency reward screen appears, it may instantly vanish, without providing the currency nor progressing to the bonus reward screen (nor granting any bonus reward).
The game's card management UI (Black Market) is a disaster of counter-QoL elements, with a style that could date back to late 90s~2003 designs. There's no type filtering, no search input filtering, no rarity filtering, and filtering selectors are exclusive rather than inclusive (meaning you're going to be tapping a lot more selectors than you'd normally need to). It takes far, far, far, far longer to manage decks than it should. Oh, and editing a deck auto sets it to active for some reason. Good luck catching that before the next match.
In matches, cards are weirdly packed together, considering how much available space there is. And if a card is selected, no indication is given of which it is. Meaning you can sometimes misplay cards.
The game's got a great foundation for cards, but there's so many obvious archetypes or gimmicks that are missed, that are both standard to such card games, and well-suited for the game's design and balance. Moreover, existing archetypes feel somewhat underdeveloped, and while overall gameplay is mostly balanced, individual cards do feel off-balance.
Campaign balancing takes too long to get out of casual, guaranteed win setups, and then once you make it to having an actual challenge, it's due to needing you to build counter-decks or themed decks that you need to grind currency exhaustively for (as basic gameplay hasn't given you enough funds by then to build a cohesive theme deck). This keeping in mind that Arena's gold rewards may not credit, and preceding difficulties give the kind of return you'd expect from a paid microtransaction game (ie, 5-10 matches before you can afford a single decent card), which doesn't quite fit this game's balancing.
(Conversely, the game's initial 'pay back your loan' quest was far too easy to complete. Maybe make that a bit tighter a demand, and card purchases less so? That'd help balance early game earnings to the incredibly easy difficulty, while smoothing out late game grinding.)
The game's introduction wall-of-text narrative screen disappears before more than a few words can be read, and has typos in the initial sentences, to boot. May as well just remove that if you aren't going to make it matter, neh?
The game's gameplay feel is very much like a standard CCG/TCG (rather than, say, modern roguetype card games like Slay the Spire, or like more original concepts that stray far from core M:tG structure). It does however have enough personality to hold it up, and a smooth and pleasant gameplay flow. The gameplay UI is solid, and it's just got all-around excellent foundations.
The narrative may bother those who find continuous dialogue screens annoying to click through, but thankfully for the narrative-oriented the dialogue is clever, crisp, and grounded into a realistic, engaging plot structure. The narrative and plot twists and developments aren't up to par with dedicated narrative games, but it's far better than one'd expect from a game like this, and continuously gives a pleasant, cohesive cyberpunk feel to its setting. Again, not amazing writing, but the writing's still far better than you'd expect of a game outside of rpg, adventure, and vn genres.
Ultimately, it's a game I've enjoyed, and am still for the most part enjoying- but not one I can RECOMMEND, unfortunately, given that "multiplayer-style card game but without the multiplayer or the card building depth or the heavily tested/player-feedback produced balancing of a multiplayer game" is a pretty hard sell to anyone who isn't as obsessed with card games (or even just cyberpunk- really, this game hits me solidly) as I am.
A month of added polishing, balancing, and card introductions- and maybe getting the AI to be a bit more considerate in which cards they bounce back to hand, they more often help you than hurt you thanks to mostly targeting heavily damaged units (that then heal for free by going back to hand)- and you'd have a game I could easily recommend, even without multiplayer or more complex PvE side-modes [eg, PvE draft or similar] (as have been the norm for any better online card game within the past decade).
But at the moment, it's too generic on gameplay to stand out more than for its nuances, the balancing flow is problematic, the game's unpolished in places, and the game's lacking in depth. None of these things alone would kill a recommendation, but in total, it's a bit..
Well, the game has the narrative and tried-and-true format to otherwise carry it. If you're not looking for something to really invest in, or just really need something to scratch your card game and/or cyberpunk itch, it's not a bad game to get for a couple of dollars or less. As long as you don't go in expecting the game to stand out for anything other than how it's writing exceeds genre (though not industry) expectations, it's worth whatever scratching your itch is worth to you.
If the developer polished all the elements I mentioned, however, it'd not only be more generally recommendable, but I'd consider its value to be several times greater than present. If it's currently a "yeah, 50 cents a bargain, $1.50's an alright deal, and maybe stretch to $3 if you're really desperate" kind of game, it could easily become a "$3 bargain / $8 baseline / $12~15 stretch" game, totally validating its $15 retail price; All the developers'd need to do is polish the elements in question and add a bit more longevity through side-modes, unlocks, and added cards/gameplay concepts. Of course, we're talking several months of added work, there, but, well- it's really a pity to leave such great foundations from achieving their full potential.
(Note, the game does have a single content/narrative expansion at just $5 [on discount, only a bit over $1], so to some degree the game does already balance off its cost-to-content value through the cheap expansion price. That said, the game's currently limited to just that one offering, which doesn't really do enough to overcome the game's issues of depth, nor of course does it help with its polish issues.)
Of course, woefully, this isn't remotely the first game I've felt that way about, on Steam. At the very least, this game still has a lot to offer, and isn't completely overshadowed by its polish and/or balance issues. That already sets it far ahead of most games on Steam. Again, absolutely grab it if you're a diehard.
If you're instead looking for something with the depth and polish of Slay the Spire, or of woefully discontinued highlight online PvE-heavy card games like Hex, and you don't have the easy sell of being a diehard, then this is one to get at $1 bundle pricing, nothing more. That is to say, still worth consideration, but not worth taking money away from other games you'd be more sure of.
