The main thing that drew me to watch this was the main gimmick of the show: a deck of 52 playing cards, each one granting its user some kind of superpower. They play into this goofy premise a little bit, but honestly I really wanted them to lean much harder into the silliness. There's some visual symbolism involving the cards, one of the main areas is called "Fourland" (four card suits), and so on. I wanted them to go all-out with this gimmick, think Alice in Wonderland, or Deltarune. Something like that would have been fun.
A big issue with this show, in my opinion, lies with the protagonist. First of all, "Finn Oldman" is a terrible name, full stop. Second, he really doesn't bring much to the show in terms of personality or agency. He has a decent amount of character growth, sure, but there is very little reason to care about him as a person.
Around episode 8 we start getting more info about his tragic backstory. He was raised at an orphanage, "Sunny Fields", and his dream is to support it financially or something, I forget. This is a pretty lazy attempt to pull at the heartstrings, but what's even worse is that we barely get any insight into what this place really means to him, aside from some lines of dialogue from him. We never see him growing up, really interacting with people there, the first time we get a look at the place it gets burned down by a super villain 3 minutes later. You've given me, and the rest of the audience, no time at all to absorb this information and as a result I now don't care what happens to Finn anymore.
Finn's power is that...he gets a gun. That's it. Finn's card power is basically just Hol Horse from Jojo, which was widely considered to be one of the worst Stand abilities of that show. It's even acknowledged in the show that Finn's power sucks. However, Finn has great aim with said gun, and it's never explained if this is part of the power or if he just has plot-armor that allows him to always land his shots.
I'm actually okay with shows featuring a "weak" protagonist, I think you can tell some really interesting stories around people like this, but Finn just doesn't do much to affect the story going forward. It feels like everything happening around him doesn't really depend on him being or not being there, besides maybe the last episode.
Another thing that really bothered me was the season's main conflict involving Chris, one of Finn's friends (or colleges, as Chris would say). Spoilers ahead obviously. Chris obtains 4 cards and is planning on using them to save his sick sister's life in exchange for his own. Finn decides that this is unacceptable and does everything in his power to stop him. The show features characters agreeing with Finn's motives, even if it's not in the interest of the company he's working for.
This is just so stupid I can't begin to get into it. Frankly, I'm not rooting for Finn at this point. Chris loves his sister and would do anything to save her life, and he wants to make a noble sacrifice for her, the same way his father did for him. I actually view this as a heroic and selfless thing to do, and at this point I would encourage Chris to follow his heart.
Finn's goal to stop Chris comes from a place of selfishness, and this is never addressed by the show. The show expects us to be on Finn's side, but we just don't have a strong reason to be. Finn doesn't want to lose one of his only friends. I get that and all, but like I said earlier, I find it really hard to get invested when I don't really care about Finn all that much. And of course, Finn ends up getting rewarded by making the "right" choice in an ending twist that's so dumb I can't wait to forget about it.
All negativity aside, the show does have some fun moments. Some of the abilities are fun and clever, and there are decent episodes in here, such as the heist mission where they have to steal a card from a boat's auction. The animation is average, maybe slightly above average with some janky moments at times. The opening is fine and the ending song is actually a surprise banger.
