Also - with Mr President, I think it was all the reading that put me off.
There IS a lot to it, but, it's REALLY well organized. It walks you through everything; that's how I was able to set up. There were some issues I had in that it doesn't really show you what a lot of the counters look like, so I spent a good amount of time pouring over all the counter sheets to find what I needed, but eventually it worked. And in a way, that's actually a good thing, to get you familiar with all the counters in the game.
The game has a very precise turn sequence and in each phase, you do certain actions. It's a huge game, but each part that makes it up overall is relatively bite-sized, if that makes sense.
I'm especially impressed that there's no politics per the current interpretation of the word - in other words, there's no Democrats, no Republicans, no Libertarians, no Green Party, none of that. Just "your party" and the "opposition party." A deft avoidance of what might have been a rather sticky point, though a lot of people gave this game it's share of crud over the years, which I won't get into.
It's definitely a learning curve, but the story this will tell seems to me to be phenomenal. It's a solid design and Gene really spent a lot of his effort and sweat to make it work, all the while with an eye of making it approachable enough without sacrificing detailed play. A tough balance to attempt. We'll see how it plays out; I only just got back to town late last night and now I have ISS Vanguard all in and a few other Kickstarters all freakin' arriving tomorrow, lol.
I do love that the manuals hold your hand through the process. But you really need to have a love of this type of thing (political game, Presidential simulator) to get enjoyment out of it.
