I played Underwater Cities last night and really enjoyed it. It reminded me of Terraforming Mars more than I was expecting. They’re both 2-ish hour tableau builders with quirky themes told mostly through the cards (though Terraforming Mars is much more a science story and Underwater Cities feels more economic and political, with the science very much brushed under the table).
I really like the card effects in Underwater Cities. Some of the cards played stay in a tableau and trigger on events. Like “Anytime you upgrade a lab, gain a science”. These build up into some pretty exciting turns where you’re triggering a bunch of cards at once in a really satisfying manner. Some cards are action cards, which you can only use at a pretty irregular interval but can feel really overpowered. One really neat mechanic is you’re only allowed to have 4 action cards out at any time, but when you play a fifth you get to activate the card you’re replacing as it is discarded. Which turns a limitation into an exciting boon.
I might be reading into it a bit, but I got a small touch of Bioshock playing the game. For some reason all the cards read dystopian to me. One of my favorites was just called “Demonstration” that lets you activate two cards, but whose card art leads me to believe this is the sort of demonstration that ended in the destruction of Alderaan. Although in this case it just got me 3 points and a little bit of science. Still, announcing card text in ominous voices definitely adds to the game. I’d recommend it.