Worth reading?

Yes, yes, 1000 times yes! But read "Blinded by the Light" first, it leads into Messiah Complex. Either way, MC is probably the best X-story in 10 years.

With few "event" exceptions I pretty much walked away from the X-Men/Marvel mutant titles by the very early '90s, so without a doubt those who have been into later material were more likely to be open to it. This may simply invalidate my opinion in some eyes, and I'm fine with that. I'd be interested to see how well or not it was liked by people who are currently deeply into most or all of the series. (Edit: And one popped up while I was typing!)

It's not that I'm a "hater" by any stretch, but just that I haven't seen anything to dissuade me from the idea that their best years are long behind them. The continuing themes of a "necessity" for deadly force and a resurrection rate that makes any grief expressed by the characters a joke (admittedly, a pair of complaints that applies to a broad swath of comics) don't grab me.

Despite some of the creators involved (Brubaker, David & Carey among them) what I read of it directly (which, to be fair, was just X-Facotr, Peter David's slice of it) and indirectly (Wikipedia covers the full event and even summarizes the aftermath)... it's likely something best left in summary.

There's nothing in there that has rekindled any spark of interest in any of the mutant titles. As it is I'm coasting along with X-Factor out of a mix of habit and interest in a couple of the subplots.

I thoroughly enjoyed Messiah Complex, but wouldn't suggest it as an introduction or re-introduction to X-Men stuff. You'll probably enjoy it, but since it's an attempt to get out of the "Decimation" stories and into a new direction, it's not a great starting off point.

You need to be moderately up to date on current events with the Xers (Cable dead, 3 members of the adjectiveless team on the Marauders, Rogue dead, know who Layla Miller is, Sentinels at Xaviers, etc).

But if you are up to date on the X-Titles, it's probably their best crossover by a large margin in years (all the way back to Age of Apocalypse possibly). Bomb after bomb is dropped and while the end of it didn't really wrap everything up, it definitely was worth the read.

I'd echo this. If you haven't been keeping up with the X-titles for awhile it will probably be confusing (particularly New X-men.)

As a huge X-fan, I thought it was excellent; the only thing I didn't like is

It's great (mostly)... much action! Can't wait to get the TPB/HC and re-read it.

Gah, I hear you there.

I find myself not carring at all when a comic character dies, even if I really like them because I assume they will just come back sooner or later.

By the time I actually realize they won't be coming back, I'm over it.

Then, 5 years later, they bring the character back anyways.

My only gripe about Messiah Complex? It ended the New X-Men series, one of the few X titles I read (X-Factor being the other) and replaced it with Young X-Men. Besides that, Messiah Complex rocked very hard.

Hated it. It was very... incoherent to me, the art styles shifted way too much between the titles, and in the end... meh. It took a handful of plotlines that we've seen before and tried to mix them up in interesting ways while raising the body count and came out with something that belongs with the worst of the 90's shameless crossover attempts.

I thought it was the best X-Men story of the past 6 years.