Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers Review (Shooterism)
Having played the game for a fair amount of time, and beaten it several times with different decks and approaches, I feel confident enough to leave my own review here to try and shine more light onto what kind of game this is, and what you should expect when playing it.
A lot of the reviews compare the game to Balatro, which is more than reasonable (this game is literally in a bundle with it together with Luck Be A Landlord), and while I don't own Balatro, having only watched others play it, I can still say that the two games simply don't compare very well, just like how actual Poker varies greatly from Blackjack. They are very different card games, with very different objectives and very different strategies.
Where in Poker/Balatro, you have the freedom to make decisions based on the hand you have, Blackjack/D&DA is a very luck based game where you NEED to balance probabilities and make gambles based on the deck you are playing. D&DA much more forgiving compared to Blackjack in the sense that it allows you to view exactly which cards you have not yet played, meaning that if you are currently sitting on a 15, and your draw pile consists of four face cards, a 10, a 7 and a 6, your chance to not bust is a 1 in 7 chance. You do not hit on a 1 in 7 chance.
This is critical information you do not get in standard Blackjack, there are situations where you would absolutely want to hit on a 15 in standard Blackjack. But that is because the probabilities are different, the chances are different... the game is different.
Not only can you view your own deck however, you can also check exactly which cards your opponent has to play, meaning that right from the start of an encounter, you can know exactly what you'll be facing, and create a rough battle plan before you even play your first card. The game gives you a metric ton of information you can, and should, use to plan out the encounter and how to react to any given play by your opponent.
This is not a surefire way of winning every encounter you face, far from it. You will lose a lot, you'll get stuck in a battle of attrition, your luck may not be in your favor at either one of the bosses. But that isn't the game's fault, because that's Blackjack. If you don't enjoy the idea of the card game this game is based on, then this game simply is not for you, and that's okay. It's for that reason that I won't denounce the negative reviews for this game, because they serve to inform people who may equally dislike the fundamental mechanics of Blackjack.
With that being said however, at the time of writing this review, the devs have released a public beta that aims to tackle a ton of balance points and concerns voiced by players, including healing 10 health up to 3 times after beating a stage boss where previously you could only heal with special and heart cards, the latter only triggering if you get Blackjack with said cards. They have also tweaked several decks to be much fairer to play against, giving the player more money at the start to more quickly build their deck, and many more tweaks to make the experience much more pleasant.
These devs listen, at least at the time of writing this review, and the changes they are making actively make the game much more fun while still retaining the spirit of Blackjack.
TLDR?
If you don't like Blackjack, don't play this game. If you do, make sure you familiarize yourself with the information that is given to you, the player. It's best to double check before hitting and busting, rather than standing and surviving.