
When I first saw this card I was excited to see a big weapon that wasn't horribly short on ammo, but after making a flame thrower character and playing him I find this weapon very effective but rather boring to use. It seemed to take away all the interesting choices my Guardian had to make in combat. The insanely high hit bonus removes the need to decide whether to commit extra cards to the combat test, I was only worried about drawing the auto fail. The insanely high damage removes the need to decide how to finish off a photo with only one health left, the enemy is just flat out dead. The big disadvantage of the flamethrower, being forced to engage the enemy in order to fire, only makes it more boring by removing the question of whether to risk firing at an enemy engaged with an ally. You just calculate what you can do with your actions, and then you do it, and then you try to make sure your flamethrower doesn't run out of ammo.
By comparison, while I find the shotgun to be an overly flawed weapon, if you actually go to the trouble to create an effective shotgun character, it is way more fun to play.