Platinum End

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Simply put, Platinum End is a story about a boy who commits suicide, but is saved by an angel so that he may participate in a battle royale to become God.

Disclaimer: Platinum End takes a very cynical view on the concept of God. If you love listening to Pastor Dave preach every Sunday, I would not recommend this to you.

Tl;dr
Platinum End is philosophical and presents interesting questions on the role of God, but suffers from a lack of character depth. However, I thought it was interesting and I think you should give it a chance and read with the ... role of God in mind.

The story is written by Tsugumi Ohba, the critically acclaimed writer of Death Note and Bakuman. In terms of story telling, Platinum End does not reach the intimacy that Death Note and Bakuman.
Platinum End is set in modern society, so there is little world building. Thus, it heavily relies on the characters for most of its story. There is a great emphasis on specifically human psychology and their outlook on life. Topics such as greed, depression, cynicism, etc. are used as a means to question the role of God. Many of them come off as simple and one-dimensional, but not out of place.
The story heavily relies on the dialogue between these characters who have all decided to take their life and are chosen because of their dissatisfaction with the world. The core theme that this manga centers on is the role of God. How should God act in the face of cruelty and injustice? Should God intervene to make humans happy? And specifically, What is God?

The art is by Takeshi Obata, the same artist that partnered with Ohba on Death Note and Bakuman. If you love his art style, there is more of it here! The art style is definitely not as radical as Death Note nor perky like Bakuman. It is more somber and blurred compared to his previous works.

From here on out, I'm going to take a more polar stance on this manga.
Personally, I found myself realizing that the scope of this manga is too big for its own good. That's not to say that it's terrible.
First, characters in this manga are shallow. But I believe this was intentional and too much of it would take away from the core themes that Ohba was trying to establish.
Second, this manga handles its main character in a somewhat unorthodox way. It establishes Mirai as a depressed main character, but he rapidly turns into a messiah character. I found him to be somewhat unrelatable toward the end. A similar thing happens with the main heroine and I believe that most readers would loose interest because of it.
Third, the angels literally do next to nothing for the story other than being a plot device. There is little to no character building for them which I believe is a missed opportunity.

Overall, I thought it was a fun read and the somewhat open-ended? ending was interesting.

With the philosophical themes involved, you read on, anticipating an ending that'll knock your socks off and leave you thinking about the character motivations and choices. Y'know, like Death Note. Because it's from the guys who made Death Note. That's probably the only reason anyone would go out of their way to read this.

The characters are a fairly dull lot. For the majority of the manga, they act like they're in a haze; devoid of emotion or ambition, they just kinda suffer along for the ride. The main characters always have this dead look in their eyes, too. They did kinda give up the ... will to live, so it's not too surprising, I guess, but there's nothing particularly interesting to recall about the characters. They become Power Rangers for some reason, the most interesting villain gets defeated, then we get a new villain who should be way more interesting, but he's not.

The commentary on society and religion ends up being way too forward and preachy; the manga doesn't really give you much to think about. By the end, each candidate tells the world what they will do as the new god; they each say something confidently and a little out of character, each one summing up a different ideal. It feels pretty cheesy that there's no overlap and that they're all such different extremes. How did this group of people ever cooperate this long?

Anyway, I'd say it's reasonably interesting up until the first big villain dies. After that, it's just very pretentious and fails to deliver. There are some decent little twists and turns here and there, but nothing incredibly outstanding.

Platinum end is a bizarre manga, and an interesting failure.

Story (3/10): The plot of platinum end starts out as a death game/sentai parody. It's an exaggerated action manga that is played mostly serious. It has its moments but ultimately just feels over the top in its set pieces and gore, with a cast bizarre side characters who don't last very long. They aren't entertaining and some are just unpleasant to read about, namely the 'ugly' guy and the 'disease' girl.

However half way through there is a direction change, and the plot becomes more of a slow paced political thriller with some moral and philosophical arguments. ... During this time it becomes fairly boring and is a series of confrontations that lead to nothing. After the entire series builds up to a certain event it finishes off with a weak anti-climax and one of the worst endings I've ever seen in a manga in the very last chapter. Some unanswered questions remain so I wonder if the ending was rushed because of declining sales.

Art (9/10): Obata seems to have put some of his best work in his whole career in Platinum end, and that's saying something considering his track record. In the first half of the series the panel style is similar to in Bakuman, with a lot of creative panel shapes and dramatic drawings. At points it is overwhelming and confusing to look at. After the direction change half way through, the panels become more straight and the art less dramatic, it kind of loses it's steam, but still is excellent throughout.

Character (3/10): The characters are extremely weak. The protagonist is very annoying with his refusal to give up his ideals in the beginning. He 'develops' into a boring, passive shell of a character. The heroine of the series and main love interest isn't interesting either and is basically a non-entity after her character arc at the start. Many other characters appear but usually only briefly and are pretty one note. The two main antagonists of the series are weak as well. The first is stereotypical and the second is one-note and boring. Neither of them have motivations that make much sense.

Enjoyment (2/10): This is the preachiest series I have ever read. Multiple times characters will go on long rants about moral or philosophical arguments. But what is conveyed isn't deep or interesting. The themes are basically outright told to the reader multiple times, but they aren't even good. You might think that a manga with lots of moral and philosophical arguments would be interesting, but it's obvious the author doesn't understand the arguments and just reads like someone talking to themselves while missing the whole point. This series is just a massive slog that thinks it is far more intelligent than it actually is.