There are no good zombie board games?

[mqstout]

Most people think that LNOE (or perhaps Pandemic... depending on what they like) are the best zombie board games. Most other (if not all?) zombie board games I've played have been mediocre at best.

LNOE hits the mark. It is, as you mention, semi-cooperative. That is -- there are two teams, the would-be survivors and the zombies. (Best played 4 players as heroes and 1 player as zombies, but it can scale down to 2 or up to 6 players with no issues.) LNOE, I might point out, came out early on in the "zombies are fashionable" trend. That alone could help you to overcome your fear of it.

How does the game play out? Well: cinematicaly. It was designed that way. The heroes are all unique and have back stories. There are tons of hidden elements of lore in the rule book, on the cards, etc, that lets you form a story as you want to. There are different scenarios, many of which play quite differently, to form different stories. It feels like a movie when you play it more than any other [board] game I've played. Their art style on the card images helps that along too. They actually had done a "casting call" and dressed people in costume and did a photo shoot for the images on the cards (instead of just artwork).

Your friend is otherwise right, though -- most Zombie board games suck, for various reasons.

Plenty of ground left for other posters!