Yet another game of Twilight Struggle, and yet another game where the neutral events dominate. (I should clarify. By Neutrals I mean both the events that either player can play, or events that are neutered if your opponent gets them [Like the "Gain 1 OP for each play this turn", which you simply play on the last OP of the round.] Playing the Soviets, I got:
Red Scare/Purge (twice)
Nazi Scientist
Junta
CIA Created* (Show my hand, played on last card)
Containment* (+1 US op/round, played on last card)
That nice 4 OP or score VPs (Defcon - 2) neutral (twice)
The (*) cards aren't neutral, but if the USSR gets them, they are basically removed without effect (there are a few cards for each country like that). To add insult to injury, the US missed it's first three space race rolls. I missed two out of three, but that wasn't as bad because a) the early rolls are worth more VP, b) I could space race twice a turn because the US was far behind (in fact, I missed both my rolls on the late game). I went to 19 VP early in turn four and got the rest at the end of the turn (by playing the card gives you 5 OPs and sets the defcon at five. Yes, another neutral card, although one that's second tier, IMO).
Is the game pro-Soviet? No. I could easily see the US running away with it if they got the same hand. In fact, I saw it several weeks ago. About the only bad luck I had — getting all three scoring cards on the second turn. And that wasn't horrible, as I just cashed them out for about 7 VPs. And if I had won the Arab-Isreali war, the game would have ended at the beginning of turn four (if not earlier).
Back when I said that 10-25% of the games would just be decided by the cards, I appear to have seriously underestimated. Right now over half of my games have been decided by early luck. Some of this can, no doubt, be attributed to having played several games against people I've taught. But even being generous, At least four of my seven games have been very lopsided (considering the deck and space race). That number is too high. The only upside is that the game took ~1 hour.
I suspect that the majority of the US problems in your game flowed from the Ops clampdown (for instance, without that, would you have scored 7 VPs during your "bad luck" turn?). I agree with your overall position on the neutrals, but I think those issues become more manageable without (or with a fixed) RS/RP.
Actually, in my game I didn't abuse this nearly as much as acould have. To be safe (since I hadn't seen defectors) I played this as my first action, instead of in the headline phase (effectively costing me two ops). It's just rude.
I stopped playing AoR because a few cards dominated. TS is only half the length, but why am I am playing a board game if a few card draws decide theg game?
I have definitely cooled on TS as well. I liked it for a few games. But I've been put off by the length, the rather large amount of luck, and the unsatisfying endgame. Plus, as I've mentioned before, playing Blue Moon pushes the same buttons for me. It's dosen't nicely capture the Cold War flavor, it's true, but it has nice flavor of its own and only takes 15 minutes to play.
Most of the cards actually seem reasonably well balanced in this respect. But Red Scare/Purge is way more powerful than any other 2-ops.