At this point I'm genuinely exhausted by deckbuilding and card mechanics in games. It feels like every single interesting concept that gets announced is just... a deckbuilder. Cool exploration game? Deckbuilder. Interesting narrative RPG? Better collect some cards. Rogue-lite with a unique premise? Hope you like drawing hands of five. The market is completely oversaturated and I think a lot of developers are just using it as a crutch because it's easy to design around and gives the illusion of depth and replayability without actually having to do the hard work.
Yes, Slay the Spire and balatro exists. StS2 is shaping up great too. I get it.(not that I play them) But those games were BUILT around the mechanic, its the point with those games. But there are many games I am seeing now that just use it as a cop out mechanic for anything that could be remotely innovative. I see so many games on steam now where a card system is thrown onto something that would've been way more interesting without it. I'm tired of interesting concepts getting neutered by these burdensome mechanics
Here are some examples of games I think are or were ruined by card mechanics:
Back 4 Blood (it had many other issues but the cards were the worst imo)
Marvel Midnight Suns
Neon White
Echo Generation 2
Vampire Crawlers
FragPunk