Asynchronous Victory Conditions.
No more am I and my opponent always scrambling for the same few objectives, this time he's trying to kill me while I sabotage his statue of Krisis the Ever Drama-ridden
Characterful people and troops.
The masters are characters who have their own feel, and their feel is not just who they killed and what heroic stuff they achieved.. Seamus is a nutjob, Ramos is obsessed by Spiders, and Colette is just plain tricksy.
Even better the troops are also characterful. it's for the most part not just third imperial stormtrooper from the left.
Not Dice but Cards.
Dice alternately Hate or Love me, cards with the cheating mechanic and soulstones need to really LOATHE me to give me a truly awful game. That's not to say they havent in the recent past (I had two games last week which were... bad) but it seems more even.
Nice minis.
Partly due to my own buying rule, and mostly due to the style and beauty of the minis, Malifaux is the game for which I have the most percentage of my collection painted for. I almost have all the troops for a single gang painted for goodness sake!
Admittedly I'm not allowing myself to buy any new minis until these are painted but still.
Victory is not always assured.
With some games, if you see certain troops on the field you may as well pack up and go home. Now there are SOME unequal matches in malifaux, but luckily I haven't run into any of them yet (apart from Gremlin Pigs vs anything...)