A drama with a lot of substance and heart. It handles a beautiful love that is mature and also warms your heart. The lead characters come from a place of great trauma and carry dark shadows within them, but the feel of the drama is far from gloomy or sad. It is the beauty of the characters that they find happiness and comforts even with a background of pain. I really liked the character graphs of Chen Ling and Qi Lou. The actors too were perfect for the roles. Every other character in the drama too is well written and real. There are no fluffy or pointless characters. The drama handles many serious issues in our society and characters with mental instabilities/psychological problems, and it does so with great sensitivity and care. I liked the music, because I felt it was used appropriately and enhanced the beauty of the scenes. The happy moments had a track that made you feel the happiness, whereas in the more tense scenes, the background score completely stopped, adding to the intensity. The first half does remind you of Devil Beside You- probably because of the character of the male lead and having been shot in the same campus, but MARS is definitely more intense and on a broader canvas than DBY. I can't think of any drama that I've as completely appreciated as MARS. It took me in completely, and I will happily re-watch it any number of times.