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The majority of the complaints being levied against Dan in the case of this episode aren't even applicable to anything Alex has been doing. Very few people here have even made mention of Dan's performance in combat.

I'm probably the person that deleted them.

I feel like a lot of the people complaining about the comments are kinda misrepresenting what the argument is against the way Dan has been approaching this series.

Nobody came here expecting high-level professional play. The vast majority assumed that game over would be the outcome.

That being said, I think there probably was an expectation that the game would be played in an earnest and sincere manner. Watching Vinny's play in the prologue, followed by Abby and Alex both putting in flawed but extremely earnest efforts set the stage for Dan's gimmicked approach to completely clash with everything and be perceived (correctly in my opinion) as being in bad faith and against the spirit of the show.

I don't have a problem with Dan's heel gimmick in shows that are competitive in nature like Mario Party Party or Steal My Sunshine, but I view shows like Exquisite Corps in the same way as stuff like Project BEAST that came before it - it's a genuine shared effort with everyone pushing towards a common goal. Dan is the only one that seems to be going against that notion, and that's why there's this backlash that you see.

Dan is treating this like it's his story, not a shared story, and that the goal is that he must shine at the expense of everything else. In a competitive game, this would be totally fine, but when you're the only person playing like this among three other people that are putting in genuine effort, it sticks out like a sore thumb and people are going to take notice of it, for better or worse as the specific case may dictate.

If you disagree with the complaints, that's fine, but I think it's really unfair to act like there's no rational justification for people's displeasure with the way Dan is playing.

Keep it civil and respectful, folks. There's no need to insult anyone, staff members and fellow commenters included.

If the only thing you're going to do is be dismissive or insulting towards other users commenting here, then you should probably just keep the comment to yourself. You're free to voice your own opinion, but do it without getting in other people's faces and shouting about how wrong you think they are.

In wrestling terms, that's the shift from heel heat (people booing because the heel gimmick is working) to so called X-Pac heat (people booing because they hate the actual performer and feel like their time is being wasted).

Plenty of people in wrestling miss that shift too or they just end up not caring because any reaction at all seems like a victory.

Changing soldier names is kinda stomping on what other people have done. That isn't at all in the spirit of an exquisite corpse, in my opinion.

Just speaking generally, Dan doesn't seem to be acting in good faith and a lot of his actions are debatably not in the spirit of this series. He doesn't seem to care about this being a co-op experience.

I hope they do a postmortem (zing!) of some kinda after this run is over. I think there's a lot to learn from it, especially if they intend to give XCOM 2 a shot.

I disagree. I think the feedback here is very different from the feedback on Metal Gear Scanlon.

Regardless of Drew's play or Dan's guidance being good or bad, that show was exactly what it stated it was going to be: Dan leading Drew through the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

In contrast, I would argue that Dan has debatably broken the premise of this show when he decided to sever any connection the audience may have had with named soldiers.

That doesn't really solve what I see as the problem though.

The issue here is that Dan doesn't seem interested in playing in good faith and that is breaking the sort of cooperative storytelling that this series seems to be built upon. Just changing the name back doesn't actually correct that. There's supposed to be an attachment to your named soldiers and a sense of regret when you accidentally let them die, but that's entirely lost if someone is willing to just rename characters on a whim.

XCOM is more than capable enough of providing its own drama and storytelling, but now Exquisite Corps has become much more about the meta layer of Dan trying to destroy this series and everyone else trying to work around that.

Certainly different people watch for different reasons, and some will be more or less troubled by this. I would just ask that you not dismiss the notion that Dan's actions in this episode legitimately impact some people's potential enjoyment of the series.

In this case, it isn't even about success. Dan is now screwing up "the journey" as well.

Playing poorly is at the very least understandable. It's a challenging game and some people are more or less inclined to this sort of strategy gameplay. It's difficult to actually get too upset about it outside of just being disappointed that this series may be cut short.

However, some of Dan's actions in this episode are indefensible, in my opinion, and really start to break the entire format of this show. He's acting in bad faith here and in a way that is extremely detrimental to the roleplaying that Exquisite Corps is built upon. Renaming soldiers breaks the storytelling and attachment to characters that is at the core of playing XCOM for many people, and more importantly, at the core of this video series.

I think the callbacks to when the crew tried to play D&D are spot on. Dan similarly struggled there with finding a balance between playing the game in good faith and completely breaking it with his heel persona.

At this point, Exquisite Corps is more about the meta story of Dan trying to ruin the feature and everyone else trying to salvage it.

If it's any consolation though, I think this series might be nearing its conclusion anyway.