I rather liked the game, however for whatever reason none of the images showed up in this or in d20 Trinity. It is very upsetting.

One of the difficulties with superheroes as a genre is just how very open-ended it is. This middle chapter in the Aeon Universe Timeline manages to pull it off, however, by simultaneously providing a huge number of options for your by-the-book players/GMs while also granting a large number of jumping off points for players who want to craft their own hero to be their way.

I actually bought this as a supplement to my Adventure! game, and if you're buying it for that purpose then it's possible that you may be disappointed. The super-science feature, for instance, is no different (it is just as easy to invent a stat-enhancing drug in the early 2000s as it is in the mid 1920s, apparently.) While the book doesn't offer much in terms of base classes that Adventure! has, it does offer three prestige classes not found in Adventure!. Strangely, while the Vigilante and Crusader class left me a little wanting (I kind of wish that the Crusader's Trademark Attack gave you more than a +1 bonus), the class I found the most interesting was the Gladiator prestige class. Rather than an example of the broadest possible archetypes for heroes, the Gladiator is a more focused story idea.

Taken on its own merits, however, this book is astonishing, and allows you to do everything from subtle martial arts experts with a knack for using gadgets to planet-smashing tanks mutated well beyond the point of humanity. A definite buy that I wish had some more follow-up material than what already exists.

Let me make one thing clear first - as good a game as Aberrant storyteller is, the system is in fact far stronger in its retrofit to D20, bass-ackwards as this sounds. The D20 version is actually more dynamic, more internally-balancing, and is a lot more accessible than the storyteller version.

Exception: The Taint rules are clunky. Not horribly so, but clunky. Not difficult to fix, but needing fixing.

Settingwise, nothing is changed from storyteller. Literally, the huge setting section at the beginning of the book is pure reprint. I have always been a fan of the reversal of the X-Men motif, where the societal hell of being a demigod is being a media icon.

If you like Aberrant storyteller and like D20, this is the product for you. Also: the Nova powers rules are OGC, if you look at the declaration in front (at least in my version). The really dynamic powers system alone goes far towards being worth the cost to purchase.