I wonder if it is less that it gives you the strength, but more that it helps with pain blocking and reaction, but with the downside that you got to take it RIGHT before the fight, and that the aches and pains will still be there when it wears off. I don’t recall them mentioning that it had no side effects, so I would imagine that the side effects weren’t quite plot-relevant enough to devote time to, and were handled “off camera”, so to speak.
I generally tend to less rely on reviewer’s ultimate judgement on something, but instead go more on more of what they liked and disliked, and what they thought of certain elements. Some things that don’t bother them might bother me, and vice versa. It’s also why I tend to like game review sites that have abandoned putting a number value after their reviews.
This is the way I imagine it too, basically everyone gets divided up into their own little cubicles, with them essentially running on treadmills, every player gets their own view projected to them, and the physical ball is most likely ‘cloaked’ by the holograms, with force fields moving it around as needed through the various ‘cubicles’.
Moriarty is such an underrated character, I really wish more was done with him, even in the novels.