The greatest DC superheroes team up to save the world, its just that you save the world rather quickly.
The premise for JLH begins with a meteorite crashing in an American desert. Superman nemesis, Braniac, embarks on capturing the meteorite to enact his grand plan for power. And this is where JLH begins. The plot feels like it was taken from an episode of the Justice League cartoon show, and considering Dwayne McDuffie helped write the story, who also wrote for Justice League Unlimited and the Teen Titans shows. Plus throw in a very nice twist about 3/4 thru the game and the plot of JLH is very good. A fair number of DC villains are also on hand, beside Braniac, to try and slow down the Justice League. The Justice League is represented here by the core 6 plus an interesting choice for #7: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Zatanna. Each hero has access to 5 powers based on their character and they all play great. I found it very hard to say one hero was not good or one hero was too good. They were all great in their own way. Superman was a beast later in the game. Batman was alot of fun when fighting the random enemies. GL had good crowd control moves. Wonder Woman could do alot of damage with her attacks and lasso. The Flash ripped thru the lesser enemies and is very good against a few of the bosses. Martian Manhunter also had good crowd control and also did good damage. And Zatanna could be considered overpowered: powerful quick casting fire spell, polymorph (turn enemies to rabbits), a heal spell, and a protection spell. The core 7 heroes were all very well made and all play very well.
As for the unlockable heroes, they range from okay to good. I didn't bother to unlock the other two Green Lanterns, but I did unlock the other 4: Aquaman, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, and Huntress. I liked Green Arrow and Hawkgirl the most of those 4. Aquaman was okay, and Huntress was okay. GA had very good arrow attacks and Hawkgirl had some good mace attacks.
So the characters were all well made, so how do you control them? Well, JLH plays just like Snowblind's previous efforts, except with superheroes. Borrowing from X-Men Legends, which borrowed from BG:DA, you have melee attacks which can be comboed by alternating the X and O buttons. Triangle jumps and hitting triangle twice will allow some heroes to fly, glide, or double jump. R1 can block attacks. L1 brings up the powers menu, and the powers are mapped to the face buttons and R1. L2 and R2 do nothing, and the map and camera are controlled by the Right Analog stick (R3 for map). Also the d-pad allows you to switch heroes and change the AI behavior (Up switch hero, left defensive, down normal, right aggresive). Speaking of switching heroes, you play thru each level with 2 heroes, which does allow for strategies and helps keep the action toned down, as opposed to the XML's 4 player sometimes hectic action. But of course being able to play 4 player would have been cool, 2 player is still fine.
As for the RPG aspects, with every enemy you kill you earn experience, like any RPG. In JLH you can set an experience split in the options to give more exp to one character over another, it defaults to 70-30, I played at 67-33. But you can play 50-50, 100-0, however you want. With each level, you are awarded points to upgrade your superhero powers to do more damage, or upgrade your health and energy (like mana for powers). Also, there are no items nor potions in the game, to make up for that there are boosts that enemies drop which you can use to augment your powers with more damage, better chance to stun/critical hit, longer stun duration, lesser energy cost, longer power duration, etc. And that is where the big customization for each hero comes into play. You can focus on 1 or 2 particular powers that you like for each hero and make them even better with the boosts. And as for the no potions, you regain health and energy automatically after a few seconds, like in the Halo games.
The graphics look good. The Justice League as well as the villains all look great. The core 7 of the JL also have access to unlockable costumes which also look great and supposedly change attack animations. The environments you travel to also look nice, mainly the outdoors ones. The cannon fodder enemies you fight are okay, but in each level you basically fight the same one over and over. Not a big issue, but worth mentioning.
Sound wise, everything sounds good. The voice acting for the heroes and villains are good. The only big name voice actors are Ron Perlman voicing Batman and Michael Jai White voicing Green Lantern. The other voice actors do a fine job. I didn't notice the music too much, but it was fine and nothing that was irritating.
Now for the downside, which I don't like addressing if its a game I like, but for reviews you do need to address the negatives. JLH is short, about 10ish hours. Combine that with the fact that about half the game you are forced to use certain heroes, there is not much replay value. There is essentially a new game plus feature, after finishing the game you can import your heroes into a new save and continue to power them up. But there are not that many opportunities to experiment with different hero combinations. And that is the major complaint against JLH. Unlike the XML games, and is successor Marvel Ultimate Alliance, you don't get the choice to pick and choose your parties. However, there is some good to not being able to choose your party, the story. Before starting missions, when you reach the boss, and after finishing the mission, the cutscenes that play feature the heroes you use so when you can choose your heroes, the accompanying cutscenes don't feel the same b/c your heroes aren't in them. But what truly matters is if the game is fun and if you like playing it. And in Justice League Heroes' case, I liked playing it and had fun playing thru it so I can easily overlook any faults.
Overall, while Justice League Heroes is not quite as good as its competitor, X-Men Legends & Marvel Ultimate Alliance, it still is a very good game. It has the greatest DC heroes, in an RPG, with a pretty good story, and is alot of fun to play. So even despite its flaws, Justice League Heroes is still a fun to play and a pretty good game as well.