The simplicity of an arcade game, but lacks the intensity.
The game uses the movie as a springboard for the plot, but I found most of the missions deviate from the film. There's a scene in the movie where Iron Man goes to destroy a cache of weapons that his company sold to a waring country. It's from this scene where the game gets the rest of it's material sending you around the world to destroy more of Stark Industries weapons. Nothing wrong with that really, or the game would have turned out to be shorter and even more boring; it would also probably have had a mini game where you have to talk to the press.
As Iron Man you will of course be able to fly, dodge, hover, and walk; although there's not a lot of reason to walk. After just a couple of introductory missions you'll be equipped with the 3 types of weapons you'll have for the rest of the game. Your repulsor (laser blast like weapon), a Gatling gun style weapon, and missiles/rockets.
Your weapons will automatically level up to become more powerful as you go along. The more you use them, the quicker they'll level up.
You also have a special move where if you fly up really high, then plummet to to the ground you'll create a shock wave. It's a nice idea, but it's a slow move to pull off, leaves you open for attack, and is hard to aim since the bad guys will be running around.
Lastly, you can throw some electrified punches around which can do considerable damage. For some fights, that's the only way to take down the enemy.
For taking out tanks and helicopters, if you want a little more style than just shooting them, you can get their power bar down low enough for you to get in close then perform a very easy quick time event to finish them off. But that usually takes longer than just shooting them, and trying to get close (again) opens you up for enemy fire, so usually shooting them down works best.
It sounds pretty action packed, and the potential is there, it just doesn't deliver an exciting experience. The levels all feel very similar to one another, and the variety of enemies you'll face is pretty weak. The kind of guys you fight in mission 3 are still quite prevalent in Mission 12, although they have a different outfit on. You probably won't notice their clothes anyway as long range combat seems to be most effective.
Even the boss battles are bland, although they did try to add a few nice touches to mix things up. The strategy for the final boss is a little different, and in one level some guy with mind control powers puts in in a sort of mini game where you have to align a transparent image of yourself with yourself, or else your controls end up backwards. Unfortunately these little touches, which were welcome, were few and far between.
You'll also come across the occasional tricky area to navigate, which I guess would be the platforming aspect of the game. But like the rest of the game, when these few occurrences pop up, it's too simple to be interesting.
Nothing is really done horribly wrong with the game, but nothing is done great. The controls are a little unresponsive, but manageable. The camera rarely gives problems, except in a few tight underground areas you'll find yourself in. The voice acting sounds phoned in, but gets the point across.
You can go back and replay levels in a few different types of Iron Man suits, but I didn't see the appeal there, unless you want to work to unlock every bonus image and movie clip by destroying all Stark Industry weapon crates lying around the battlefields.
It's one of those games that I'm sure looked solid on paper, but just lacks intensity when you're playing it.
The only real pain is that the few times I failed a mission, there didn't seem to be any check points. If you failed near the end, you had to start back at the beginning. But once you knew what you were doing, the missions should only take 15 minutes to blow through.
If all you're looking for is a game where you need to fly high and aim low without getting too stressed out, then you may get some enjoyment here. Unless you're a die hard Iron Man fan however, there are better superhero games out there.