I donno bout any other fan of RPG system but I'm more eager to roleplay as the cast from the card game then my own hero sure I'll make one or two OCs but to roleplay Anubis from Starter Kit or Argent Adept will be freaking awesome.
In our group, there's often a resistance to setting a game in a preestablished fictional setting (like Marvel, Dresden Files, Star Trek, etc) because depending on the setting, there will be people who know a lot of the lore vs those who don't. And while it hasn't seemed to come up when we play in published RPG settings like Golarian or Torg, that "I don't get that reference" thing seems to be a bigger deal.
That said, when I run one-shots, it's always with canon characters and folks have a good time.
I honestly don't know how folks will feel about playing in the Sentinel Comics setting vs an original super-setting.
Yeah, when I run games in established settings, I always make sure to avoid using established characters (even if the players don't think I'm playing them "wrong", I always feel like I'm doing the authors injustice), and to write the story in such a way that knowing the setting's history isn't helpful at all. Even then it can be tricky once you reach high-level threats--if something is going to destroy all Faerun, why aren't the epic-level heroes like Elminster getting involved? I vastly prefer to design my own settings using concepts and models from existing ones, unless the game's default setting exists only in the game and doesn't have any lore any of us could be familiar with.
If I were to run a Sentinels game, it would be either a Disparation universe, or cover obscure events in the past that could reasonably be unknown to SC fans.
What about stuff set in "the future"?
I have to admit, hearing the Shipping episode left me with some ideas about the character I'd tried out in a reverse-engineered version of the RPG a couple summers back that I would not have suspected about her, and I'm going to be interested to try them on for size.
For my players, none of them, not even me, had prior experience with the Sentinels IP.
The starter kit characters were our introduction. I have no idea at all if we did it justice, but we had fun with it.
Well there's going to be so many pregens never using em seems a terrible injustice to the creators.
Christopher and Adam gave us a tool-box to use how we each see fit. Some of us will use them happily, thankful we won't have to go and make our own. Others, for one reason or another, won't use them. It's all gravy.
I personally plan on using the cannon wherever I can, with maybe a tweak here or there. (I want the possibility of the main line being opened up to the rest of the multiverse to be a thing but not immediatly avaliable to my players)
Personally, I wanna continue my fave heroes adventures after OblivAeon.