I love the video game, got over 300 hours in it. Was hesitant but bought the game because I wanted to share it with my SO, who couldn't play the video game. We have played about 10 games so far and loving it. The OP broken deck feel is, if anything, even stronger. Because the numbers are smaller in the board game to make calculations easier, buffs and debufs are more impactful (e.g. strike does 1 damage so 1 strength brings it to double damage), so at the end of the game you are often playing cards that do something like 50 times the damage of starting strikes. I know it's possible in the video game too, but I've rarely achieved that.

Disclaimer: I've been playing (and failing) A20 in the video game, but playing A0/1 in the board game, so there is a difficulty disparity there, not sure how much that contributed to the OP feeling