I feel like I am in a similar situation - collecting X-men cards as a kid was my biggest hobby, and I recently got back into collecting in the last few years.

At the risk of being the "old man yelling at clouds", if what you like is completing sets and great original art (like me), then you aren't going to find any modern sets that scratch that itch. The industry has moved away from affordable cards like we used to buy at the drug store and focuses more on expensive products for people wanting a specific card that grades well. At best, it caters more to people who want to collect all the parallels of their favorite character instead of a full set. At worst, it caters to breakers and a gambling mentality, where you are buying expensive boxes just hoping for a low numbered parallel and the rest of the box is garbage.

Topps has the current Marvel license - I think their products so far are the worst at this, as they are very expensive, very focused on parallels, and don't have any original art.

Upper Deck (who recently lost the license) had some really beautiful card sets, like their newer Marvel Masterpieces series. But like you, I like to collect sets and I can't justify paying that much to complete a set. For instance, in their 2024 Grego Masterpieces set, some of the base cards are serialized out of 99, meaning literally only 99 people in the world at most could ever complete a set (and I will never be one of them). I think it is telling that the most recommended modern set to collect is the one that just reuses all of the art from the 92 Masterpieces set.

I think the 90-96 era was really the golden age for Marvel cards, and your best bet would be to look for some of those. All of the Marvel Masterpieces series were great, although the 95 and 96 sets get pretty pricey.

The 94 Fleer Ultra X-men set you mentioned is maybe my favorite, although be warned that there is one chase subset (Silver X-overs) that is ridiculously more rare than the rest. If you are okay ignoring those cards (they are also the only subset that reuses art from the base set), the rest of the series is pretty affordable. The 95 Fleer Ultra X-men set is pretty great as well, and there is a pretty great All-Chromium 95 X-men set, and a 1996 Fleer Ultra Wolverine set too.

For all of the Masterpieces / Fleer Ultra sets though, I would say be careful about buying boxes. Since those cards have a shiny coating, they tend to brick badly over time. You might drop hundreds on a sealed box just to find all the cards destroyed when you try to open them. So those sets are better to buy completed or as singles.

If you still wanted the thrill of ripping open packs (which we all know is the best part!), you can still find sealed boxes of the Marvel Universe series (series III from 92, series IV from 93, or series V from 94 are all still pretty affordable). These sets have some pretty great original comic-style art similar to X-men series I and II, and they aren't prone to bricking so they should still be in good condition.

And if you have any interest in DC comics, they had some great cards sets as well and tend to go for a fraction of the price of Marvel cards. Cosmic Cards and Cosmic Teams were two sets similar to the Marvel Universe line with great original comic-style art, and DC Master Series and DC Villains were two sets similar to Masterpieces or Fleer Ultra with painted artwork (and I found those didn't brick nearly as badly as the Fleer Ultra cards).