I know styles need to evolve, and you need something really powerful to threaten the characters from the MCU, but everything about this so far is making me think it’s going to be a joyless slog.

Makes me think of The Wizard of Oz for some reason

Certainly could happen, and a thorough exploration would be really interesting, LOL.

In particular for this one, the trailers with all the multiversal sad-sacks sitting around and listening to Sue and Thor seem to imply that Doom is so overpowered that the heroes are gonna be on the run/in hiding most of the movie and get their asses kicked so they can have some villain-credibility.

I don't plan to revisit Harry Potter, but it reminds me of their penultimate movie where everybody's just gray and depressed and trying not to die.

Doomsday is also going to be leaning a LOT on previous projects to make us give even a single shit about the ridiculously huge number of people they've drafted in, which we specifically told they were going to try to do less.

I haven't seen an MCU film-thing in like a decade. This isn't art. It's a product.

I don't have high expectations for this movie. The big crossover movies tend to be among the worst MCU movies in my opinion, just because they have to give every character their own storyline instead of focusing on the story the film is trying to tell. Based on the trailers I have seen, this movie seems particularly at risk for this trap.

For some reason, the Fantastic Four are going to meet the main MCU cast, then you know they will fight until they see the goodness in each other's hearts and become BFFs. Then the X-Men will show up, possibly as Doom's minions or something, and the same thing will happen. Also, Captain America is back! There is going to have to be a plot line about why he leaves his world and how all the Avengers are happy to have him back.

Let's say the film will start with 30 minutes for the Avengers to assemble, then a half hour for each of those stories, and suddenly, there are only 60 minutes out of a 3 hour movie to tell the main story of Dr. Doom/parallel universe Tony Stark trying to take over the multiverse or whatever his plan is.

Am I still going to go see it in theaters? Probably. I am sure I will have a few friends who will be dying to see it and will want to go see it in a group. Plus, I am sure that it will have a couple amazing set piece scenes and it will be referred to by every MCU film for the next 2 years.

Ooh, we all know how well genre fans take it when their expectations are subverted in a way that makes them re-evaluate previous entries in a series.