Do a lot of gaffers play together at all? How hard is it to unlock new characters? I want to play as cable but not pay fees to unlock him.
Edit: I also downloaded it off of the marvel site... Any benefit to downloading from steam instead?
I like to group up, but people mostly solo. Unlocking characters needs a currency called eternity splinters. On average, 1 splinter drops every 5 minutes. Based on that average, it can take about 30 hours of play to specifically buy one hero, half that to buy a random unlock. So... choose your starter hero wisely

The only benefits of steam are the steam benefits: steam community stuff, steam servers for downloading updates, using steam wallet to fund cash shop, etc.