D-day is the only A&A game with cards other than setup or things like unit stats in minis. D-day is much shorter than most maybe all other games. I don’t think any of the games I’ve played have been longer than three hours and I would guess much shorter like 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 and 1 half hours.
While I’ve never played Memoir '44, I have played Battlecry which is a similar system and the cards are not really similar. There are three sets of cards: Order, Fortune and Tactics. The Order cards are the only ones you must play with and they are basically the phases of the turn. As the game progress some of the phases no longer happen and those cards can be removed from the game.
The Fortune and Tactics cards are optional. Tactics cards give you a one shot benefit to be used during a particular order. You use them once and they are removed and can’t be used again. Fortune cards ask you to roll a die. Depending on the outcome of the roll one side will gain a benefit or suffer a hinderance. Fortune cards come up everytime you come to the Order card they are associated with. If the order no longer applies then the Fortune card can be removed as well.
I think D-Day is a nice game and it is a good intro to A&A for younger players or a nice quick game if you want to play more than one.