A good addition to the series but for almost every good change there is a bad one holding the game back from greatness
Story
The developers had talked about the game taking place during two popular storylines from the Marvel Comics, the first part being the Secret War and the second was the Civil War. It was later revealed that they would change some of the events for the Civil War in order to bring all of the heroes back together to face a new threat during the final act.
The Secret War is a shorter story, in the comics, that involves Nick Fury leading a small team of heroes including Daredevil, Spiderman, Captain America, Luke Cage, Wolverine, and the Black Widow to Latveria where the daughter of Doctor Doom, the new Prime Minister is selling high tech equipment to villains to use in America. Nick Fury, against the President orders, takes his team to stop her, a year later when the event comes back to haunt Fury and the heroes that accompanied him he goes into hiding right before the Civil War to avoid arrest. While a few events for this story are changed, such as the number of heroes that went with Fury, this part of the story is done well and makes for a very good opening act to the game and helps to set all the other events of the story into motion.
The Civil War was a much longer storyline than Secret War but with the exception of some changes depending on which side in the war you choose, pro or anti, you spend the same amount of time in it as you do in the other two of acts of the game. It is a shame because so many details are left out and some of the best points were considered to have never happened during this game or were just never shown. Not only are you missing out on some great story elements but on some possible new levels. Your choice between Pro or Anti really only effects your objectives in the three Civil War missions but keep you on the same map, the only other difference is that a few of the heroes have to play on one side and can't be used on the other. You also have different bases and unique conversations. In the comics the majority of the books having to do with the Civil War were excellent, so it is a shame to see such little detail for the Civil War part of the game.
I won't reveal anything about the last act of the game, besides saying that it is done well and brings the heroes back together in a believable way to fight against a much larger threat to the world. The ending is slightly different depending on the side you chose in the war, but the changed ending alone is not reason enough for a second play though if you didn't enjoy the gameplay.
Sound and Dialogue
The sound and music are done well and most of the voice actors do their jobs equally well. There really isn't anything amazing or bad in the sound area.
Throughout the game, most of the characters are given good dialogue. One nice feature of the game is that your dialogue choices are written like they were made for the character you have selected. While this changes nothing, not even the responses given to you, it is nice to see some of the different heroes personalities, it is only a shame that it isn't voiced. The game does have a few moments where your character will get unique voiced dialogue and conversations but these moments are rare and only last a few lines.
The characters have some great spoken lines while they are fighting that further shows their personalities, here are some that I liked
Gambit (if you are on the Anti side): "I've been on the wrong side of the law before....don't bother me none."
The Green Goblin: "This is more fun than throwing blonds off of bridges" (Gwen Stacy reference) "Am I off my meds.....yeah I am."
Deadpool: "Come on, I'm funnier than Spiderman right?" "You should have asked the developers for a bigger lifebar." "Deadpool, is about to die." (Gauntlet reference)
Gameplay
For the most part this is the same Marvel Ultimate Alliance/X-Men Legends beat em up gameplay that you know and love, or hate. The game is a top down beat em up style game, each of the games heroes has powers that they can use to attack, defend, or to effect something. The combat remains the same as the last game with you being able to do different combos to your enemies that can stun, trip, or knock them up in the air. The only real difference about the combat is the way that you throw your enemies, before you just grabbed a guy and would flick the stick the way you would want to throw him, or you could do one of two attacks against them, multiple punches or a hero specific attack. Those moves have been replaced with a button to pick the enemy up, which will let you walk around with them then throw them or you can do a series of punches. I preferred the old way but it isn't a big loss, even though some of the hero specific moves looked cool they were never that practical to use.
Each new entry for the series seems to remove more and more of the old RPG elements, this entry continues that trend. You are no longer able to improve up to four costumes for each hero to get different abilities, while almost every hero has two costumes in MUA 2, it is just for looks and does not affect gameplay. Items are no longer in the game, they have been replaced by boosts which allow you to equip three at a time to affect your entire group. Boosts are found on the map or by accomplishing certain requirements for the story or for each character.
The graphics have been improved, the environment, characters, animations, and powers all look much better but it is nothing that will really wow you. To go along with the better graphics, the camera has changed. It is now closer to the action and usually works for the better, it allows you a nice view of the combat while rarely getting in the way. The game puts many more enemies on the screen than before, you will often find yourself fighting around 15 enemies at once which works out great with some of the new additions to the game. The only downside of this is that I did experience some slowdown when there were a lot of enemies and power attacks filling the screen, annoying when it happened, but rare enough to not really be anything to complain about.
Hero powers have also been changed in some ways, I think for the better. In the past game most of the heroes were given about six attack powers, two stat increasing powers/or enemy stat decreasing, and a special move they could use when a meter fills up from fighting. In Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 every character has four attack moves, while this may seem like a bad change, it stops you from worrying about changing your equipped moves all the time and, unlike some powers in past games, you will rarely find something that you aren't going to use. In this game you can use all four powers at any time, in the last you could only use three with one button saved for your special. In addition to leveling up your moves to improve them all abilities now gain added bonuses as you level them, up to three added bonuses. For example, a projectile attack might just do damage at first, then add knock back, then become faster, and then explode on contact as you level the move up. Although there are less powers to use, they are much more satisfying than many of the previous games abilities, the close in camera gives you a much better view of the improved graphics than the old camera would have.
To fill out the rest of their moves every hero has six passive powers that they can improve, just like the X-Men Legends games, there are two problems to this system however. First, many of the passive powers are shared between heroes giving you little originality. Second, when you have to choose a side during the Civil War the majority of the characters have two passive powers, unlock two for anti, and unlock two for pro, so you won't even be able to access them all on your first playthrough. When the heroes get back together for the last act heroes that were locked to one side during the war will only have two passives. For example, I chose anti, I always did like to be the good guy, so Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, and Songbird were missing four of their six passive powers. While annoying, this is taken care of with a new game+ which will give them all the powers at once as long as you have played each side in the war. While I believe the offensive powers have been improved, passive powers as well as the RPG elements that they brought to the Legends series has taken a big hit.
One of the biggest additions to this game is the new Fusion system, which allows you to combine the powers of two heroes for devastating effects. The fusion system is also a new way for you to heal, whenever you make the most out of a fusion attack enemies will leave behind a power up that will heal a character of your choice. The new healing power up causes you to think about the best time to use your fusions, especially on the harder difficulties. The way that fusion attacks are done is very simple, all you have to do is hold down the trigger and push the face button of the hero you want to fuse with. If you forget which hero is which, for as long as you hold down the trigger, the game shows you who each button will go to and which of the four types of fusion the two characters will make.
Every hero can do a fusion with every other hero, while there will be some differences between each hero, many of the powers end up being close to the same. There are four different types of fusions you can do one where both heroes charge around attacking everything in their path, one that clears enemies in the area around you, one where you move something around that usually sucks in or damages enemies, and one where a large rock is thrown at a certain spot or a hero is thrown by another. Storms power is a perfect example of how cool fusions can be, but it is also the perfect example of how similar most of the powers are. The majority of Storm's fusions involve her creating a tornado that you move around the map to suck in enemies, while she does that another hero does something to the tornado to damage enemies. Even though the actual attacks don't have much variety, the fusions are usually fun to use and will at least look different depending on the heroes used.
The 360 and PS3 versions of the game give you 24 heroes to play as, 25 if you can find a code to download Juggernaut. All characters can be fun to play as, my favorites so far being Gambit, Captain America, and Deadpool, and with the focus now only on four powers you will rarely find one power that seems like any other. An exception being the melee characters like Thing, Hulk, and Juggernaut. Even though some of their moves may seem similar, with the new engine, number of enemies, camera, and graphics the game does a much better job of getting their strength across than past games in the series have. It is very satisfying to rush with Juggernaut swatting away any enemy that you come across aside, and often over a cliff or off of a building.
The only other things to mention are that there are a lot of NPC heroes making appearances in this game, you might be able to talk to them, fight beside them, or fight against them as bosses. Stan Lee even makes an appearance in one scene, unfortunately he won't be doing any fighting or saving civilians from falling rubble. The boss fights are much better than they have been in the past but they still will not take that much strategy to take down. The last thing that this game offers is the ability to find many collectibles hidden on the levels. You can find audio logs to give you more insight on the story, artwork, and information on the characters in the game, as well as Nick Fury's thoughts on each hero or villain, even his thoughts on Stan Lee's character. If you miss some you are able to use the simulator to go back and replay past missions.
The game has the same new game+ feature as the past games, allowing you to take your leveled up characters through the game again on the normal and above difficulty levels. The only problem with this is that when you are forced to choose a side during the Civil War replaying the other factions missions is locked out of the simulator, even if you have played the game for both sides. While annoying you can just have two saves, one at the end of the Pro side and one at the end of the Anti once your heroes are leveled up all the way. This solution will force another playthrough though.
Multiplayer
The game allows for four person Co-Op either online or local. You use whatever saved game the host has and you use the characters that the host has, while playing through the game you are able to save all the collectibles you find but nothing else.
I have only played a few games of co-op online with four players, some games lagged to the point they were unplayable, some lagged a little, some worked fine. It seems to be like the last game in that way. Some ways that the game has improved is that the new camera will keep people from becoming stuck on objects and you are now able to apply boosts to your character and able to upgrade your abilities all in game if you push the select/back button. While you are making changes or upgrades your character will automatically follow the rest of the group. While this feature doesn't add much to single player it is very nice to have online as it saves everyone the time of having to go back and forth in pause menus.
When it works the game is a lot of fun playing with friends, or even random people you meet online. It is helpful to play with people that talk so you can decide when to best use your fusion abilities.
Conclusion
If you are a fan of the Marvel Universe, of co-op games, or of beat em up games, I happen to love all three, you should definitely get Marvel UA 2. If you are not a fan of any of those this game will most likely not do anything to change your mind. While it is a very good game it doesn't top the other three, as many of the fans were hoping that it would, especially with over three years of waiting. What the game does do is make some welcome changes to the series, and a few annoying ones. Let's hope both for a sequel and that this will be one of the few developers that keeps the good and improves upon the bad as future games come out.
DLC
Downloadable content has been released in the form of five new playable characters and some new simulator missions. The sim missions are fun while they last but they won't be bringing you back to the game if you've already stopped playing. The new characters are fun to use, have their own unique powers and have some impressive fusions. The new characters include Cable, Psylocke, Black Panther, Magneto, and Carnage. All characters are well made and I was happy to see one of my favorite characters, Psylocke, make an appearance. The content is priced at $10 As a separate download Juggernaut has also been made available, for $2 I believe.
There has been no announcement for additional content at this time