Dominion: Nocturne Board Games, 144 months to 9600 months

My wife and I own all of the Dominion expansions, and are huge fans of the game (weve played almost 150 games in the last year alone). Pretty sure we were more excited Nocturne than we had been for any other expansion, because it seemed like it was going to add a lot of cool new stuff/interesting ways to play. Especially after reading all the card previews that were released, our excitement levels were off the charts. Unfortunately, our early impressions have not been good. Neither my wife or myself had wanted to say it aloud, but today, after having played with most the cards in the pack, we finally admitted aloud to each other than this expansion is underwhelming. Almost any game you play with this expansion will result in the inclusion of the spirit cards, and the boon/hex cards. In almost any build, weve found the spirits COMPLETELY worthless (especially since its often not that easy to get them). The boons and hexes are tricky. The boons are supposed to be good things, but depending on your build, can sometimes be nasty. That results in us tending to avoid any card that makes you receive a boon (for instance, gain a silver, is very often more harmful to your deck than helpful). Hexes serve their purpose and are across the board quite nasty. There are certain cards that allow you to look at the boon before deciding if you want to receive it, or allow you to choose to receive it now or the next turn, and those are nice, but they almost feel like an admission that the Boons are often not all that good. Night cards also seemed extremely interesting. In practice, we have found that we tend to avoid them, unless there is a clear interaction that looks like it will work well. The night cards are generally not all that powerful, have functionality that is duplicated with cards from other expansions, and generally just seem to waste space in your hand. Though, it is quite cool that you can always play all your night cards, since there is no limit like there is with actions. The whole Night concept is also just somewhat confusing/akward. The night phase happens after the buy phase, but there are a number of night cards that could result in you getting more money in your hand... Which you then have to realize you cant actually use since the buy phase has passed. Heirlooms also seemed like a great new concept, but have generally not proved all that beneficial/interesting. Again, cards like when played, gain a silver are NOT useful past round 3 or 4. I want to love this expansion, but I now feel like weve played enough games to know that we just dont love it at all. While there are some new types of cards, most the cards in this expansion are similar to cards that already exist, in terms of what they give you (they are just played at a different time/in a different way) Maybe we are too set in our ways which is leading us to not like some of the new cards/phase or use them to their full potential? Please feel free to comment with questions/comments/suggestions!! Well update this review after weve played more games with our final impressions.