After an extremely lengthy and equally secretive beta, Valve and Richard Garfield's card game Artifact has now landed onto Steam. As expected given the concerns about its monetization model, Artifact has made its public debut alongside some seriously mixed reviews, though thankfully it appears that the gameplay itself is being widely praised.

For those of you not sure why people are complaining, Artifact is a game where you'll need to pay $20 in order to access two basic decks and 10 card packs, after which you will need to either purchase packs or individual cards with real money in order to progress. Outside of incredible runs in some of the game modes, all of which require an additional payment, there is simply no way to acquire new cards for your collection. It's pretty much the physical card game economy you might be familiar with from games like Magic, but without the ability to trade cards with other players outside of using the community market.

Whether that is a game-breaking problem or an actually positive thing, that is something I'll leave for you to decide. What I will say, however, is that you should not buy any of the expensive cards right now since the prices are still in a bit of a flux. There is a chance they will go higher once people realize what the top tier decks are, but so far they have been slowly dropping lower and lower, so do make sure to do a bit of research before opening your wallet.

You can learn more about Artifact, as well as read some of the community opinions, by heading over to Steam. And finally, I'll leave you with the recently posted launch trailer. Enjoy!