A disappointing experience that's not as fun as it looks.
The presentation for the game is done well, and matches the mood it's supposed to. The voice-overs are extremely cheesy, but I suppose that's all part of the experience for this title.
One would hope that the rest of the game would just as kid friendly; and although the skill level required to beat the levels isn't too crazy, the difficulty level is ramped up through it's poor design.
Controls are stiff, clumsy, and non-responsive. The biggest problem I have with them is that the special moves are assigned to the regular attack button, and the left analog stick you use to control your character. I suppose this put in place to reduce the amount of button that are used, but it results frustrating combat.
For example, pushing Down on the stick, and then Square will result in a special attack. But if you're facing up, and you try to turn and attack the bad guy behind you, you could end up doing a special attack in the wrong direction instead of turning around. The reverse is true as well. You could be trying to do a specific attack, and end up facing the wrong direction. It gets aggravating.
Even more aggravation comes in when a partner attempts to play co-op, and this is sad as it should be making the game more fun. One of the things that makes it so upsetting is when your partner does something silly like fall off a ledge. In that case you're both transported back to the previous check point. How thoughtful. Also, because it's not split screen, and because you have very little control over the camera which is already aggravating in single player mode, player 2 is permitted to go wandering off screen while the camera keeps following player 1. It would have been nice if player two tries to walk off to the right while p1 is walking to the left, that the camera stops you both until you get together, or even just follows p1 and drags p2 along not letting them go off screen; or even zoom out to keep you both in frame. Anything other than what it does.
To make it even worse, they game could switch who's in control of the camera between chapters of a mission. Here's how it works: each missions is divided up into several stages. The missions also follow a storyline (weak as it is) for one specific player. So for example, if it's Iron Man's story, then Iron man will be decided as player one. Then you pick the team mate who will go along with you into the mission. So if you're playing co-op, and P2 takes over Ironman, and you take over the team mate when you get to the next stage of the mission, P2 is now actually P1 because they happen to be controlling the character that the mission is suppose to be about, and are therefore now in control of the camera. If you're playing co-op with a young kid like I was, this can get tiresome as you have to follow them if you want to stay on the screen.
And there's more points in that paragraph that can be picked on. Yes, each mission has several stages. Playing by myself, it takes at least half an hour to get through one mission. Playing with a youngster, it can take 45 to 60 minutes, and there's no save points until the entire mission is over. So if you've gotten through 3 of 5 stages and want to stop, you can't or else you'll have to start from the beginning all over again. Sure there's continue points if you die, but no way to save your progress.
Also, as mentioned, you have to pick who your one team mate will be at the beginning of the mission, but you can't select from the full roster of characters that's available through the rest of the game. So if you really like Nightcrawler, well, sorry, he's only available as a partner on missions 4 and 5. And it's not like one character gives some great advantage in any particular mission, it's just a matter of picking favourites. So limiting who you can play as makes no sense.
And for the most part, the missions have a real copy-and-paste feel to them. There's not a lot that distinguishes them from one other, other than what the walls look like. Mission objectives don't really change and neither does the strategy you'll need to take. Now, normally this wouldn't bother too much me if the controls, camera, and game-play refinements actually made the missions fun to play, but sadly this isn't the case.
In fact, the only redeeming quality in game-play can be found in the arena battles. This is also the only thing that may entice you to play the adventure mode of the game, as by doing so you'll unlock new characters to use.
The arena battles allow 2 – 4 players (up to 3 controlled by the AI) to go into all out brawls. You can go 1 on 1, or play team against team, set the number of rounds to win, and the difficulty level of your opponents. Because the arenas are small, and can fit on the screen all at once, the camera issues are eliminated. And because you generally need to only keep your attention focused in one direction at a time, the cumbersome controls become less of a concern. The arenas also come equipped with hazards and power-ups to add some challenge and variety. Because all of the games downfalls are minimized for these fights, it does make it seem like this is actually a fun game.
Sadly, due to a repetitive and boring adventure mode, it's not enough for me to recommend this title to even Marvel fans.