I finally joined up with Steem Monsters to see what all the fuss is about. I have only sunk about $20 into it right now just to get my feet wet. So far it is interesting. The no action required gameplay surprised me at first, but it makes sense in a blockchain based environment. This gameplay style puts a huge emphasis on card selection and order of said cards. The frequent adjustment of the rules of the game also keeps the meta from getting stale or people just net deckings the best solution. With the queue times, it's really a good game to play while you are doing something else (like writing a Steem post).
I've sold a few cards on the market, most of which I've just pumped back into buying a few more decks. I've kept a little of the profit so I'm probably made back $1 of my initial investment. I don't think I'm quitting my day job yet...
I'm not sure whether it will keep my attention long term or not yet. It still feels a little too heavily weighted toward pay to win, rather than a strategy heavy title. It will take a user a long time to take the initial $10 investment and free play the rest of the way to competitive. My other big complaint is you get to level up some of your monsters, but you can't actually use their new leveled form until you level up the appropriate summoner, which is actually harder to level up than some of the monsters due to card rarity. I wish it was a little easier to level up one's summoner.
That is all for now. I'm going to try and play a few more games before I go to bed.