Re: Chit Chat
Having played all three editions of M&M, and the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions of Hero, I think I can make a good distinction between the two.
Both systems are points-based, effects-based systems. You buy effects. A Blast could be a shotgun, a bolt of lighting, an energy beam from your eyes, a psionic bolt etc. This is true in both systems. Both systems are good at doing a variety of things. Fantasy, Supers (obviously), and sci-fi are all easily done.
The difference between the two is in the play style. One is more freewheeling, and the other is more tactical.
In M&M, you have a freewheeling style that replicates the feel of combat in comic books. You don't have hit points or the like, and fights can last a while, or they can be over in a couple rounds if you fail your saves. If you enjoyed the climactic fight at the end of the third Matrix movie, where they're in a city-spanning brawl, then that is the kind of thing you can do easily with M&M.
In Hero, you have a more tactical style of play, like you find in D&D. You have hit points, and more resources that you have to keep track of, and movement is based on a hex grid. Makes it an excellent choice for grittier games.
That's the big difference between the system structures as a whole. Hero is nice in that it really hasn't changed much over the last three editions. There's some cosmetic things, of course, but for the most part the mechanic is the same.
M&M has changed through the editions. Here's my breakdown on the way things worked.
1st ed: Weaknesses were worth 10pp each, period. Powers could not be taken past your power level, which meant that some characters, such as Flash, were hard to do at lower levels, while characters like Cloak and Dagger were easily done. It could be fairly unbalanced, as someone with enough flaws could get to be a good deal more powerful than the other players, but the lack of power frameworks meant you had to have a lot of points to be a generalist rather than a specialist.
2nd ed: Drawbacks now grant a variable amount of points depending on severity. You can buy powers without saves to any level you like, but powers with saves were capped at Power Level, which means you can have someone who flies at the speed of light, but you couldn't have someone who can punch a hole in the moon. A well-balanced system, allowing for a great deal of customization without going overboard.
3rd ed: Drawbacks no longer grant PP at all. If your vampire can't take sunlight, that's a complication now, and will give you a hero point if you burst into flame walking past a window. Power structure is unchanged, but you have two new attributes to buy up, and more defenses. Meaning in addition to not getting PP from drawbacks, you have to shell out more PP on attributes and defenses. Heavily skewed towards characters like Cyclops or Superman (a couple tricks, that they do well, but no real flaws).