Might be a timing thing - by the time I got to Mean Team I'd already read quite a few future sports stories (even though Mean Team is only that for a short time), and I'd already enjoyed tons of excellent Belardinelli art. As has been mentioned before, his out-there space craziness and inventive biology was always riding high, but then his human figures could often come over as a bit static (as in the fourth panel posted up by BPP).
So, for me, Mean Team seemed like a not-as-good template remix of things that had come before, from the same creators, who had shone more brightly. I don't know how I'd feel if it was my first future sport story, and my first Belardinelli. I remember I wanted to like it, but ultimately it fell flat. It's better than Beyond Zero.
