Marvel's Avengers
Assemble your team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, embrace your powers, and live your Super Hero dreams. Marvel’s Avengers is an epic, third-person, action-adventure game that combines an original, cinematic story with single-player and co-operative gameplay*. Assemble into a team of up to four players online, master extraordinary abilities, customize a growing roster of Heroes, and defend the Earth from escalating threats. Marvel’s Avengers begins at A-Day, where Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Widow, and Thor are unveiling a new, hi-tech Avengers Headquarters in San Francisco. The celebration turns deadly when a mysterious enemy causes a catastrophic accident which results in massive devastation. Blamed for the tragedy, the Avengers disband. Five years later, with all Super Heroes outlawed and the world in peril, a sprawling adventure ignites when a determined young woman named Kamala Khan sets out to reassemble and rebuild the Avengers to stop the unchecked power of the secretive new force known as AIM. Marvel’s Avengers continues the epic journey with new Heroes and new narrative delivered on an ongoing basis, for the definitive Avengers gaming experience.
Steam User 183
Put down the friggin' rocks brothers and sisters, hear me out.
With today's patch the game is officially dead, yes, but unlike a lot of other live service crap, this one will stay playable even after they pull it from sale. You've got every mtx the game has, for free. Even more, legacy players got a brand new skin as a parting gift. They could've said f*ck it and leave it to die, but instead the devs worked on it so the players will be able to enjoy it after shutdown. Now do tell me that this isn't worth at least some recognition.
Now the main question is, does this worth 40 bucks? It really depends on your taste in games, this one is an instance based brawler game. It is better in multiplayer, but you can definitely enjoy it in single player too. The story has a decent length, it has endgame content, but the game is a bit grindy and repetitive after a while. Each character has a different playstyle, so you can easily find the one that suits your needs. The graphics, sounds and music are great, so is the handling of the game.
In my opinion you should wait for a sale (Pretty sure this will get a hefty cut on the upcoming sales, for a few bucks this game is a steal), but don't forget to grab it before September 30, 2023.
Steam User 112
Short version:
Pros:
+ Looks good
+ Combat can be satisfying
+ Decent story mode
+ A lot of content
Cons:
- Identity crisis (I will explain down below)
- Bland world design
- Microtransactions
- Buggy
“Long” version:
Marvel’s Avengers is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Nixxes. It was published by Square Enix.
This game is hard for me to review. I grew up reading Marvel comics and when this game was first announced, I was super hyped for it. Unfortunately, the radio silence that followed the announcement was worrisome and the gameplay footage that released to the public a year or so later looked underwhelming at best.
Even though the Avengers are in a large part of the game, the campaign focuses on Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan. I am more of a silver age of comics kind of guy, but I have read a few comics where this character was present. She has the potential to be fine… Her powers are lame and I feel like Mr. Fantastic is a way cooler character that embraces the cheesiness of stretchy powers. Anyways, she is a tricky character to nail. If mishandled, she is an annoying character – a fangirl that spews out cringy dialogue and feels like nothing short of a token character for diversity. If handled properly, however, she can be an innocent beacon of joy and hope that serves as inspiration for our battle-scarred heroes.
So… What happens in Marvel’s Avengers? They go a little bit too far with the whole “I was just a Jersey girl who didn’t fit it” and this character takes way too long to develop into someone relatable. Did I hate her? No, not at all. Do I care about her? Nope.
As for the actual story, again, it had the potential to be fine. After a terrorist attack during Avengers-Day, the city is left in shambles and many people are exposed to a dangerous mist that turns them into Inhumans. Picture mutants, like the X-men, but instead of getting their powers once they hit puberty, they have to be exposed to this mist and undergo terrigenesis.
The Avengers get blamed for it, they disband, some disappear, some are presumed dead, yadi yadi yada… Kamala Khan figures out Tony Stark’s password (dumbest plot point in the game) and manages to find some information that will clear the Avenger’s name and reputation. She then embarks on an adventure to reunite the team and become an avenger.
For everything this story gets right, it also gets a bunch of things wrong. Making A.I.M. the villain was a cool concept at first - I was really looking forward to battling the “bee-keepers” – but you find yourself fighting generic robots for 90% of the game. You get introduced to new enemies? It is just a bigger robot with more hitpoints.
It took me around 15-20 hours to beat the campaign with quite a bit of side-questing. That is solid.
I like some of the takes on well-know Marvel characters, but I feel like barely seeing any other heroes and villains makes the whole experience feel less cool.
Anyways, that is enough on the story. Onto gameplay!
Again… It is… Fine. Here is the thing – I liked it, but I can understand why many people do not. Combat gets progressively better due to ability unlocks and some characters have amazingly satisfying moves. Cap’s shield, for example, can be thrown and it will ricochet off of enemies and come back to you. You can unlock an upgrade that allows you to kick the shield once it comes back and it feels super satisfying, especially if you time it in the middle of a combo.
Most characters have something going for them and they all have branching paths on their skills trees. You can focus on a great deal of things, such as DPS, buffs, finishers, etc. It is good.
I do have favorites, of course, but I feel like a single character sticks out as underwhelming – the Hulk. When you have a huge green monster being staggered by a tiny robot… It just does not feel satisfying, you know? Granted, I switched off the Hulk as soon as I could so maybe he does have builds that grant him stagger resistance.
This is one of my main gripes with the game. By adding insane powerhouses like the Hulk and Thor to the mix, they never feel powerful enough. Human soldiers still take way too many hits from these guys – it is lame. I would rather have “street-level” heroes fighting human enemies instead of all these robots. Luke Cage, Hawkeye, Daredevil, etc. would have been cooler additions to the base roster.
Also, I mentioned the lack of villains in the story… Not much of a spoiler – M.O.D.O.K., Taskmaster and Abomination (excluding the DLC)… That is so bad. I love Abomination but come on! Had they gone with the “street-level” concept I just mentioned, I could see awesome, lesser-know villains such as Typhoid Mary, the Wrecking Crew and the Wizard.
After you are done with the campaign, you have quite a few side-quests to complete, but these are super repetitive and underwhelming. The higher the difficulty, the harder it is to stagger opponents and the gameplay does not feel as good against enemies that do not react to your hits; which are quite numerous later on!
You are constantly on the lookout for new gear, which has no place in an Avengers game. This whole “looter shooter” take was poorly implemented and your items do not even change how your characters look. You know what does change your looks? Skins… Which you can buy with real life money… Yeah, I will talk about that later.
You also have loads of different currency used to upgrade some items and, again, it is lame and has no place in a game like this.
Graphics are up next. I think the game looks really good if you look at its presentation. Map design, however, is not good at all. Sure, you have some beautiful areas in the game, especially during the story, but in order for all the characters to be able to move around and get to higher places, the devs decided to include random floating platforms all over most maps and it is super jarring. The lack of visual cohesion after the campaign is overwhelming, sometimes.
Sound effects are good. I loved how satisfying shield bashing someone felt. Some sounds, however, are not as rewarding, like Thor’s hammer.
Voice acting is good too. Some of Kamala’s dialogue feels super forced but the actress did her best with the material she was given. Tony Stark’s humor was super hit or miss but all the other team members sound good and stay in character for the whole game.
Ok, time for the worst part. I mentioned skins… This game is meant to be capitalizing on the whole skin/emote/customization craze that has been happening. It is horrible. You get tiny amounts of currency and upgrade materials. You want more? Spend money on this full-price game. You will slowly unlock character skins by doing daily and weekly challenges with EACH hero. It takes way too long and each DLC character requires 1000 premium currency to be eligible for said challenged. You want to skip that and unlock all of those? You have to pay for it - and for skins, emotes, finishers, you name it…
So… I do not hate this game but I do not love it either. You have some really talented devs that were clearly brute forced by the suits to squeeze out the most amount of money off of customers. Truly despicable.
I got it for cheap so I am fine with all the clunkiness, but I understand why many people are not. It did not turn a profit so I am sure it will get abandoned as soon as possible.
If you find it on a deep sale and you have some friends to play it with (hard to find random people online) I think it is a decent enough time.
Final score: 6.5 out of 10.
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Steam User 101
For $8.00? Not bad....
Steam User 94
Yes. I do recommend this game, especially now.
With the release of the next patch in March 2023, ALL Marketplace items; skins, nameplates, emotes, Challenge Cards, etc, will ALL be FREE.
Plus getting Steam Keys or sales can let you get this game for 90% off!!
It's a fun beat-em-up looter with a Marvel's Avengers polish.
The story is actually really good, and I was able to become emotionally invested.
You can play as all of your favorite Avengers, so if you're a fan, I don't see why you wouldn't like the game.
Steam User 39
Is it perfect? No. Is it flawed? Yes. Is it fun? Yes. While it has issues, the combat is fun. I got it on sale this month and have dumped around 50+ hours in and still having a good time. It's basically a Marvel Beat 'em Up version of destiny (in my opinion). If you like Marvel AND Beat 'em Up games, you'll probably enjoy this. If you don't, be sure to give it a pass.
Steam User 26
This game is going to be removed from stores on Setember 30th. March 31st was the final update for this game. Now this game is in the best build it os ever going to be. Wait for a deal before September ends.
Game filled with replayable levels, loots, RPG progression to unlock new skills and exploration to unlock several collectibles. Story very underwhelming with characters trying too muchb to be funny and often failingm chracter face models are bland but the costumes are very well made. With this final update nearly all costumes/skins are unlocked to be changed at any time, including the ones from MCU movies.
I pity everyone who spent money with DLCs and microtransactions for Marvel's Avengers, This game fully deserved to fail.
Steam User 52
Great single-player campaign for $8 on sale.