I don't know, I vastly enjoy actually playing against people in this game as opposed to MK11, but it still feels empty? It feels like a fighter that came out in late 10s. Very pretty but beholden to the burdens of a severe lack of interesting content. The worst thing is it feels as if they tried and just failed when it comes to that. Like they're not sure how to put together an MK game that grabs everyone anymore. I've played fangames with more content and secrets and fun stuff outside of the actual fighting.
The Krypt was always a big point for keeping people engaged after they finished the story and they just jettisoned that shit for "Endless Tower Mode with a different name". MKX had a pretty linear 1st-person Krypt with jumpscares but it was still pretty fun to explore. Despite all of MK11's flaws, they really went deep for the Krypt and made it a 3rd-person exploration game with puzzles. The only major issues with MK11's Krypt was that they purposely designed it to take WAY too long and there was a bunch of shit they shoved in the Krypt that wasn't collectibles (skins/fatalities/etc) but was instead random power-ups to use in Tower modes.
Previous MK games tried out a bunch of little minigames/side content to do. Deception had Konquest mode, which was a whole adventure mode that used the game's fighting system when necessary. They had some cool stuff like Chess Kombat, which was Chess but you fought with the pieces and health is carried over in fights. Some pieces had special functions (like the bishop can cast spells like Healing pieces, Pawns are numerous but only have 40% HP). There was also Puzzle Kombat, which was Tetris with special abilities. Meanwhile Armageddon had a Kreate-a-Fighter system and Motor Kombat (pretty much Mario Kart). MK9 had a lot of options with Challenge Towers (think Smash Bros Melee challenges), Test your Might stuff, and tag-team mode. Tag team was far more interesting than the Kameo system because it had "tag assists" like the Kameo system but it also allowed you to actually swap characters out mid combat and extend combos. Even more interesting was that the tag team mode allowed you to play 4-player Mortal Kombat in teams of 2v2.
They had a lot of options to go with for side content but instead shoved in an Endless Tower with scenary called Invasion mode, all so they can do "seasonal invasions" to try to FOMO players. The Kameo system has the same problem that the Trophy and Mii fighter system had in Smash Ultimate, where people see their desired character in those systems and get annoyed because it pretty much hard deconfirms them ever coming as a DLC character. It doesn't help that the Kameo system is pretty much a worse tag team mode.
MK Shaolin Monks on the PS2 was the last time I put time into a mortal kombat game. I thought about getting into the one with all the horror characters, as it seemed like a neat idea. Then I came to my senses and realized the novelty would wear off within a week.
You mean MKX? Pretty much each of the new games mostly followed a "theme" with the guest DLC fighters. MKX was horror characters (Predator, Leatherface, Jason, Xenomorph), MK11 was Action characters (Terminator, RoboCop, Rambo), and MKONE is looking to be comic characters (Homelander, Omni-Man, Peacemaker).
