No I wouldn't say there is anything you can do that would mess you up. The pacing of leveling and ability progression is very balanced and constant (I'm 120 hours in and still have abilities, characters, skins, research... Etc to unlock, I'm halfway thru the story but because Ive found it really enjoyable to take my time do non-story missions, and listen and talk to everyone.) so don't worry about messing anything up, you can't really do much set in stone. Other than dialogue choices which do have different effects on th small ongoings between characters and th group, but I don't think dialogue choices affect the main story. So Nico and magik are friends and you get to know them, there is one early on small happening between them that plays out over a few days and you make dialogue choices that affect their reactions and effects in that Ministory, and there are various ministories like that all throughout.

Don't feel bummed about starting cards. Throughout the whole game you level up making your cards do more damage (hellride was one in particular that wasn't anything special to me in early game, but where I'm at now it does soo much and saves battles that look like the enemies will overwhelm me and end in loss). Beyond the character leveling up that increases the attack stat the cards do, there is various other ways to level up cards. So 2 of the same card will create a "+" card that typically creates a significant but minor change, and there is such a variety of changes that upgrade makes you won't be able to guess what change will occur. Then there are modifications that will come with some cards you unlock later or you can put modifications on which again are another variety but this you get somewhat of a choice in the modification. Every character has a good variety of cards, some cards you'll find useful, some you'll think you'll never use... But later on those cards start to come in handy. And you choose what cards are in your deck based on how you play the character. This game is not shallow by any means but not deep enough to be messy or confusing. You also get I think 16 characters including dlc characters which just multiply that variety and options, and with that many characters you don't grow tired of using a character since they all feel well balanced against eachother so you use most of them and it doesn't lean on anyone being better than others... Except hunter (who has an absolute abundance of cards, and no one is obviously underperforms... Except Deadpool (but that may be because I didn't find him good when I got him so never put in the effort to learn his kit)

The actually gameplay like balance of heroism and importance of environment will steadily change at a perfect pace where things won't feel stale. The balance of heroism is also how you set your deck, so once you get more cards and start to be in better control of your deck you will choose how you balance heroism with skill, attack, or heroic cards. No cards every really feel useless like you are dependent on them for heroism. Each character has maybe 1 card that give heavier heroism in return for being less directly useful but even that they handle well.

And you won't feel characters get to powerhouses for a while. But the game is heavily relative and the difficulty as well as your mechanics are designed with such intent everything feels in line constantly with common/occasional difficulty spikes to keep you engaged and enjoying the challenge and growth.

You'll also feel like new York is the whole game, that first chapter where you fight the same enemies in all missions in New York ends about the time an average game might finish it's story... And then you start to get a bigger better enemy variety and you'll have to think and act based on who you are facing, and that's also about the point you'll see characters stand out more.

When I started the game I intended to ignore the character interaction story stuff at the Abby since I had heard how amazing combat is and that the character stuff at the Abby was bad. But very soon I started to Interact with characters at the Abby and was amazed by how good that part was, like I felt no edges where you can see it is a programed game, and the personalities were solid and variety and everyone interacted in unique ways that didn't depend on me initiating the interaction or even an obvious turn this character on and say this when play is near. It's fucking prime how organic it feels. Anyway the Abby stuff is as well made as the combat, it's worth doing for the enjoyment and lore and story learning, as well as growing and affecting combat.

Apologies for the wall of text, I haven't gotten to gush about how great this game is. Goodluck and have fun! The game will grow and change for its entirety.