Ok, wait.
AC/DC is great and all, but isn't it like all the others you described where you hit x shot x number of times? I love the game, dont get me wrong, but its all the same.
TSPP and LOTR for most are wood choppers. Great themes, great games, incredibly deep. Its the depth that turns a lot of people off. As much as I like to have a great marathon game here and there, Id also like a short mediocre game to be fun and enjoyable. I find the grind on TSPP to be just too much work.
Just my opinion, but we arent all in it for the competition side of things.
AC/DC is the prime example of the least repetitive game play in all of pinball, you can't just pick x shot, and shoot x shot, x number of times to complete anything in ACDC. It has a constant and dynamic strategy that changes moment to moment depending on what you have done to lead up to that point, without one singular over powered strategy that everyone does.
It's fluid, it's dynamic, and it keeps you playing, and always has something else to do, or some other risk to accomplish.
TSPP and LOTR can be long playing games if you don't have them setup properly. Come try out my LOTR, and let me know how much wood chopping you do. Also again both LOTR and TSPP offer dynamic strategies that can change moment to moment with a ton of variety.
This is the same thing that WPT offers, your never at a point where a ball is on a flipper and you don't have a variety of choices to make.
Xmen lacks all of that. The strategy is linear. Light a villain, play a villain, and knock down as many hero's as you can while that villain is running. then stack a villain with you MB. There isn't any real incentive to even complete a hero or villain since the only reward is that in the wizard mode and adding a bit of value to your magneto MB, but not much more then just starting the same hero. TSPP, LOTR and even ACDC to a lesser extent add value .
TSPP has victory laps for every mode you complete, plus extra time for your alien invasion.
LOTR has gifts from the elves
ACDC has the least reward in that for every song you complete it makes the value of song shots worth more, but the strategy comes from the fact that once you are done with a song you can't pick it again, so when you use a song and how is important.
If you are just batting a ball around, then really theme is all that matters, it's what I find most people do anyway, so I get why some people like Xmen cause to them, they don't see the strategic choices laid out in front of them in the much more in depth games.
LOTR, TSPP, are perfect examples of games where players can just bat the ball around and enjoy, and then when your ready get into the real strategy, it's there. ACDC, WPT not so much, you can bat the ball around, but unless you understand the depth of what you are trying to accomplish, your are not going to understand it.
Xmen is a game where after you are done batting the ball there isn't anything else.