The Dallas Observer has been around since 1980 and is your pretty typical New Times/Voice Media Group free local alternative paper, with good cultural coverage of the Metroplex centered on Dallas. Cultural coverage for the Generation X/Xennial types these papers are aimed at includes politics as well as music and restaurant previews and reviews. While I read the Observer mostly for the the latter group of stories, I do enjoy the former as well.
The Dallas Observer (which I note to avoid people confusing it with the Texas Observer, a very different publication) is definitely your cynical Gen X with a heart of gold politically. They report details of stories you might miss otherwise, and do a fair amount of reader reaction, and not just reading what people said on Xitter. It’s generally not my first source for a big story, but I find it pretty reliable overall. Also, unlike the DMN and the Star-Telegram, it’s not paywalled, just nagwalled.