Every Hero Needs a Villain received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[3] Kyle Mullin of Exclaim! said, "7L handles the no-frills production, which is rife with early '90s RZA homages on 'Night Crawler' and the aforementioned 'World Premiere.' But the Bostonian beatsmith also experiments with crunchy classic rock style guitar riffing on 'Czartacus' and 'The Great (Czar Guitar).' Those beats prove to be a dynamic soundtrack for Esoteric and Deck's shameless, endlessly entertaining punch lines, which are bizarrely charming enough to leave you rooting for the bad guy."[5] Justin Ivey of HipHopDX said, "Every Hero Needs a Villain is one of the rare sequels that matches the original in quality. The chemistry built on the first CZARFACE album carries over seamlessly to their second effort as Inspectah Deck, 7L & Esoteric seem tailor made to work with one another. 7L’s underrated production shines and perfectly complements the styles of Deck and Esoteric. CZARFACE may know they're playing to a niche audience who desires a return to glory days of the ‘90s, but the execution is where CZARFACE differs from most nostalgic acts."[6]
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number 15 on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in the first week of its release.[9]
