by squallgoku
Malifaux has greater emphasis on your crew building to synergize together with the other models you are running.Carnevale is dice rolling based with RPG like characteristics - instead of taking a double movement action to run as in most games, you do a Dex check along with a normal movement action with the number of 'Aces' (successes rolled) increasing your movement by 1 inch each.
You could critically succeed and be able to cover a lot of ground, or you might fumble the roll and end up stumbling where you started.
Personally I like both games though I probably prefer Carnevale.
That said, Malifaux has easily the best objective based gameplay of any system I have seen with its Strategies and Schemes.
As for being shorter games, its hard to say because it can be pretty hard to wound each other in Carnevale at times, especially anyone with armor - Damage is based on how many successes you roll or beat your opponents successes, then subtracted by toughness (I think that's the term).
Almost all characters have a base toughness of 2, with armoured guards having 4 - There are ways to overcome toughness though, progressively stacking stuns on a target does damage that ignores armour, or drowning in a canal ignores armour too I believe.
Malifaux is a more solid game compared to Carnevale which has got its bugs, but Carnevale is more cinematic and fun - thats my opinion.