Actually, speaking of Dominion, I wanted to put in a plug for my new favorite game of all time(at the moment). It is a deck-builder(Dominion) set in the Shadowrun universe(a roleplaying D&D like universe, but this game just has the same setting). You are a "runner" with any number of co-op teammates, fighting evil corporations trying to win missions.
Items that when combined make it my number 1 game:
1. It is a card based deck-builder, like Dominion. I love these games because you start with nothing and build something really cool and fulfilling by the end of the game.
2. The artwork is amazing. Shadowrun is set in the future in Seattle, it has a cyber-punk theme where I was honestly not crazy about before buying the game, but I LOVE it now. I love looking at the cards now.
3. It is co-op. As much as I love beating up on my wife/friends when we play games, sometimes the most fun can be had discussing how to beat a common enemy. It feels AMAZING to pull off lots of great combos with your team to kill the baddies at the last little bit with one health left.
4. It offers persistence. Sure Dominion can be fun, but this game has an RPG element to it. After every successful mission, you get a "karma" reward(karma is their word for xp). After you get so many of these you can level up your character by picking a sticker and slapping it on your character board. These are real stickers, they don't come off, which gives the game a real feeling of permanence and you have to make you choices very carefully. For those worried about running out of stickers and not being able to play forever, well, lets just say it would take hundreds, and hundreds of plays before you run out in the base game, and they offer expansion packs for 10 bucks loaded with new character cards and another set of new stickers. And don't worry about scaling, the game automatically scales perfectly, so as you get more karma, the game gets harder.
5. This game is hard. Winning does not come easy, and you will lose quite a bit, which I absolutely LOVE. Who doesn't love a challenge, right? If you won all the time, what fun is that? I've played about 16 times so far and only won about half of my missions.
In conclusion, if you really enjoy Dominion, I cannot recommend this game enough. I know a few people that have played several hundred games of Dominion. And that is all well and good, I play lots of games that don't offer a permanence effect, but two games this similar, well honestly, I cannot imagine ever really playing dominion over this game when I know I could be leveling up my character. When you hit 70 karma, you can fight a dragon. It will be a long, long time before I can fight the dragon.
Here is a video showing how it plays.
I actually have an extra copy for sale on the BGG marketplace, if you think you would enjoy the game, let me know I'm willing to heavily discount the game and send it out to you for free shipping I love it so much. This is not a sales pitch, I just love the game that much, I'd actually be losing money.