Hmmm…let’s think about this and avoid knee jerk reactions…
Dr. Doom (3/5/5) - 57K Health
Blue Passive - when enemy matches yellow or black, steal 1 AP and true heal Doom for 4K: This is helpful if he’s tanking 3+ colors (which is true for 4* players). He’ll save health packs and he gives you a little AP generation. On defense, it’s really annoying if you’re trying to collect yellow or black. If you wait to kill him last because of his true heal and other passive, then it increases the chance of him getting 9 Black and hitting you hard. With Clagger, or even better, Domino, you’ll have a great combo: Doom tanks most colors, heals frequently and starts nuking people fast. Overall, this is really good design: it helps right away on offense, it’s annoying on defense, and it’s not overpowered either. If he stole 2 AP or healed for 8K, that would be OP. I don’t see this power as a real counter to Thorkoye though.
Black Passive - when downed, remove all enemy strike, attack, protect tiles: this is obviously meant to be used on defense, but perhaps with some creativity, it could be used on offense with 5Cap (but I’m doubtful). Against the 4 special tile meta, it forces your attacker to kill him last. If paired with Domino and Vulture, your opponent would be in a pickle: Domino keeps dropping black tiles and they need to match black to stop Vulture, but they still give them black anyway. After killing Domino and Vulture, there’s a good chance Doom could nuke them back. In 5* land, this power can be problematic, but to a lesser degree.
9 Black - Deal 23K damage and drain 1 friendly red, green, purple AP: This is a great nuke! Cheap with minimal negative side effects. It could be compared to Green Goblin’s black nuke, but it’s better. In 5* land, this is a solid power. In 4* land, it could be exploited with Domino, as mentioned above. Even 3* players can flood the board with black using Fist. Given the AP generation of his blue passive, this power could be viewed as being cheaper than 9 Black AP.
10 Yellow - Team health burst of 5K and reshuffle board: This power is far from exciting. I like board shuffling and cascades, but 10 AP is a lot for that. I could view this as cheaper than 10 AP because of his blue passive, but still. Health bursts are most useful in the beginning of the match, but at 10 AP, it will be mid-late battle by the time you fire this. If it cost 7 Yellow AP, then we would have a great power because it could be fired often and early. Perhaps at 7 AP, it would be OP as you could frequently do team bursts, cascades and never die (kinda like Medusa). But if Doom was paired with Domino, then you have a board shaking theme. I suppose they purposely made this power “meh” because his Blue passive and Black active spell certain “Doom”.
Overall, I like this character and find him interesting to try out. I can understand that 5* players are not excited because he doesn’t appear to be top tier. Nevertheless, I think people will find that he’s more useful than first anticipated. True healing, passive AP stealing and a cheap nuke is nothing to ignore. As usual, he’s more useful to 4* players than to 5* players, but that’s probably a result of having a million 4* characters and many possible combos and counter-combos. I don’t see any synergy with Kingpin, Cable or Kitty, so perhaps we’ll get someone else that pairs well with him in 5* land. If you paired him with Loki and Phoenix, your opponent would have a real pickle deciding who to kill first.