Slay the Spire 2 Gets 10,000 Negative Reviews in One Day Over a Patch That Wasn't Even Live

Slay the Spire 2 went from 97% Overwhelmingly Positive to roughly 77% Mostly Positive in a single weekend. Over 10,000 negative reviews flooded in on March 20 alone, all because of balance changes posted to an opt-in beta branch that most players hadn’t even installed.

What Happened

On March 19, Mega Crit published patch notes for Beta Patch v0.100.0, the game’s first major balance pass since its Early Access launch on March 5. The stated goal was clear: make infinite combos harder to achieve. The patch was only available on Steam’s opt-in beta branch. It had not been pushed to the main game.

The reaction was immediate. Within 24 hours, between 9,000 and 11,000 negative reviews hit the Steam page. A second wave added roughly 2,500 more the following day. The game’s overall rating dropped from 97% to around 77%.

The Controversial Changes

The nerfs were sweeping. Mega Crit touched cards across every character.

The Silent’s Prepared card was reworked entirely, renamed to Prepare, and changed from a 0-cost draw/discard into a 1-cost card with completely different mechanics. The Ironclad’s Expect a Fight now prevents gaining additional energy the turn it’s played, specifically killing infinite loop combos. Stoke no longer draws cards. Forgotten Ritual now exhausts.

The Regent, Necrobinder, and Defect all received significant nerfs to key cards. But the most controversial change was to the Act 3 boss Doormaker, which was buffed to permanently remove the 10th card drawn each turn and gain Strength when it does. Players argued there was almost no reliable counterplay.

Why China Drove the Review Bomb

Here’s the part most coverage buries. The overwhelming majority of negative reviews came from Simplified Chinese users. English language reviews maintained around 95% positive throughout the entire event. Simplified Chinese reviews dropped to roughly 60% positive.

This isn’t just gamers being angry. It’s a platform access problem.

Steam Community features, including forums, guides, and discussion boards, have been blocked in China since December 2017. Discord is also blocked. For Chinese players on the global Steam platform, leaving a review is literally the only feedback channel available without a VPN.

One Chinese player explained it directly on the Steam forums: “Expressing our dissatisfaction through negative reviews on Steam is the only outlet we have, and the one we are most accustomed to.”

That context doesn’t make the review bomb proportionate. But it does explain why Chinese players responded differently than English speaking players who could vent on Reddit, Discord, and the Steam forums.

Mega Crit’s Response

Mega Crit posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on March 20, the same day the review bomb peaked. Their tone was measured.

“We make changes based on a mix of player feedback, collected metrics, and our own design philosophies,” they wrote. “The beta branch will see the most experimental changes and will be tweaked each time until we feel it’s stable enough for the main branch.”

They emphasized that participating in the beta is optional, that no change is necessarily permanent, and that this balance pass is “the first of many to come over the next 1 to 2 years.” They also noted that in-game feedback from actual testers is the most useful data they receive.

The Bigger Picture

Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million copies in its first week and peaked at over 574,000 concurrent players. It’s one of the biggest indie launches in Steam history. A review bomb over a beta patch, especially one that hadn’t gone live, was always going to draw attention.

But the story here isn’t really about card nerfs. It’s about what happens when a massive global audience runs into platform restrictions that force feedback into the bluntest possible instrument. Chinese players weren’t more angry than anyone else. They just had fewer ways to express it.

Mega Crit will keep iterating. That’s what Early Access is for. The question is whether Steam’s review system can handle being both a feedback tool and a quality signal at the same time, especially when a significant chunk of its userbase has no alternative.

If you’re curious about games similar to Slay the Spire 2, we’ve got a full list. And if you’re looking for deals during the Steam Spring Sale, there are plenty of deckbuilders worth your time.