So far this card for me has been really awkward and seems to compete in the same space as Hard to Ignore.

Both cards require you to defend which seems to me to be the big downside with Ops Room.

Ops Room can work with allies but in most cases to serve the best benefits you would want the attack to be low enough that reducing the damage has a meaningful impact. That is a game state that doesnt happen very often (perhaps if you know the scenario has some 1 ATK Quickstrikers). The other downside is that the ally becomes exhausted.

So if the most common value comes from using Ops for your Heroes defense does it out shine Hard to Ignore. In a limited span it can add one extra virtual defense. It also can be more useful when your defense is not the primary build and you arent able to block all of the attack (as otherwise required by Hard to Ignore)

But if you are routinely blocking with your Hero and giving up your THW/ATK to do so isnt the hope that you block all the damage.

Hard to Ignore definitely has 2 more significant bumps in its favor. First is that it costs one less which at the cost of a card an extra can provide you the leftover resources to play Armored Vest returning the value on the saved damage. But the best upside is that both Armored Vest and Hard to Ignore are sticky for more than just 3 uses.

I have played this card with Falcon where I dont think it fits because he is so reliable at blocking all the damage from an attack making Ops unreliable as a needed response.

That said I do think there may be a niche for this card if using it with the Groot Ally who really wants to block and might have the HP depth to sustain longer value and get more consistent return from the card... For 5 resources and 2 cards you have a very efficient wall which might compete well with other "Shield Defense" cards like Forcefield Generator....hmm I might give this combo a try in my next iteration of Adam Warlock. Might be rather interesting since he has ways of recurring pieces to the puzzle.

What is interesting about Ops Room is that it is one of the rarified "spend a counter" cards where each counter does more than a single point of whatever effect it allows. Up there with Command Center. The Douglas, Med Team and The Night Nurse.

Honestly, banking three resources to prevent three damage is pretty okay. Not sure I would include in many decks. But we also get to remove a threat each time we use it while possibly triggering the many '...after taking no damage' cards in Protection? No brainer.

This is the backup that makes sure your Protection deck ticks that one extra damage prevention over the top to justify those upgrades. And swiped some threat at the same time. And Protection is very weak on thwart, so this card exceeds it's cost valuation.