A lot better than the reviews say.
Gameplay: This is a fighting game where you use Marvel characters to defeat your opponents. It is a 3D fighting game. It's a standard one at that. You have a regular attack, a powerful attack, throws, block, lock-on, and turbo. When you use turbo and press an attack button, you will do a ranged attack. Blocking is useless, and lock-on doesn't even work. You are better off just hammering on the powerful attack button. While the core game is good, there are many different glitches that will get on your nerves. Hit detection isn't always good, and clipping is a pretty big problem. You can also catch the enemy in an endless attack pattern, and this makes the game far easier than it should be. Some characters have special abilities,like flying or web-slinging. You activate these by pressing an area on the touch screen. But they aren't very useful. Web-slinging is pointless, and flying is only useful if you don't want to fall off of the side of a level down to the next area. You can attack while in the air, but they are impossible to aim. You can pick up objects, but all you can do is throw them at your opponent, but it doesn't do much damage. There are pick ups in the levels but they are extremely rare. The AI is pretty stupid, and usually doesn't do anything until the later levels. Each character has a finishing move (Basically complete rip-offs of MK's Fatalities.) that you can do at the end of a fight, and all you have to do is press a certain sequence on the touch screen. Many of them are really stupid, but some of them, like Elektra's, are pretty cool. The enviroments are destructible, and to a suprising level. If you manage to throw your opponent into something, chances are it will be destroyed. Its pretty cool when you toss your opponent right through a wall. You can also use your throws as counters. If you anticipate an enemy's attack, if you time a throw right, you can catch them and toss them away.
The game is fun, but not for everyone. I seem to be one of the few people who find this to be fun, but not for long.
Graphics: The graphics are surprisingly good. The characters look good, and the enviroments look very nice. And most of them are multi-leveled, so if you go off the side, you fall into another area. On the bridge level, for instance, if you happen to get knocked off, you will fall to the freeway below, with moving cars. The character models look impressive, and are quite detailed. The animations are good, but sometimes they skip a little. The framerate never drops, and does a good job keeping up. There are moving cars, moving water, and a lot of destruction, and a lot of it is surprising to see on the DS. The menus aren't very special, and are plain. There are a few different levels, and all of them are very different. Overall, the graphics are really good. Especially for the DS.
Sound: Oh no. I don't think you want to know how bad the sound is. It's terrible. There really isn't much sound except for the one song that plays over and over. There are a few moans and grunts, but nothing much else. When you destroy something in the enviroment, it makes a sound. But it is the same sound for everything you destroy. Breaking a wall sounds just like breaking a tree. Not good. There aren't any voice overs, so don't expect your characters to say anything. There really isn't any sound other than that. Just terrible.
Value: The main mode here is arcade mode. Arcade mode is the story mode, if you can call it that. There really isn't any story. You just fight enemy after enemy until it is over. You earn money after every fight, and sometimes you can place wagers on certain fights. You might as well bet the max everytime, because you aren't going to lose. There is a play now mode, which is basically a fight where you pick the characters. There is a big problem with the arcade mode. Every character has a short, medium, and long story. You mostly only unlock things by playing through the long story. But you start out with only the short story for each person at the beginning. You have to beat each individual character's short story to unlock the medium, then beat that to unlock the long story. So, were talking around 50 fights before you actually unlock something. 50 fights per person. And trust me, you won't want to play it that long. I did, with several characters for the sake of this review. You can spend your easily earned money in the comic shop, which is where you buy everything. Arenas, concept art, characters, and extra costumes await you. The only one you will be interested in is the characters. There is an impressive roster, totaling somewhere around 18 characters. You start out with maybe 5. Some of the characters in the game are: Spiderman, Iron Man, Venom, Wolverine, Storm, The Thing, Daredevil, Elektra, and so on. But many characters play almost exactly the same. Lets take Daredevil and Spidey for example. Both are almost exactly the same. The same for Venom and Spidey. Hardly any of the characters are really individual. There is a lot of stuff to unlock, but you will stop playing by the time you unlock half of it.
Overall: It isn't as bad as some sites make it out to be. However, it isn't that good either. If your lucky like me, you can just borrow it from a friend, and not have to spend $20 on something you don't like. I'm just saying give this one a chance. Thats all.