Okay, I'm not quite done with the game, but I'm also kinda finished, while being impressed. This isn't my type of game, but I do like Civ 6, and XCom 2- and yeah, Marvel... Big shame, liking the best form of profitable media out there. TBH, Buying this game on discount, with characters like Storm and Wolverine made me forget I knew nothing about the titular group! If you're old like me, this game may bridge the gap on some newer runaways you may enjoy as well. Except a few of them; some of them are just annoying little catchphrases, repeated over and over until you want to take their webbing and string them up, with them always talking, just dumping the same ideas and narrow conversations over and over and over again, so yeah, I'm gonna give it a week or two off.... Really going to evaluate looking up the ending or pulling myself through to finishing it up.

On sale, I'll say it's worth it, but there's some major inconveniences in the game, mostly in the upgrading and management of cards in a series of menus across various locations. The game is mostly played from the Marvel heroes' secret hideout, which acts as an menu system in many ways, unboxing and converting and enhancing and combining, all taking place in different rooms within the "no running" corridors. It's a drag on time, but it also encourages the dating- I mean, "relationship" system where you make friendship points by flirting and earning skimpy outfits for poolside lounging. When I first heard about this system, it seemed fun (and there are narrated and documented moments between characters like Blade and Morbius (who's actually kinda cool in this game) that do work) but that quickly falls away when 90% of it is small talk drivel, and only Deadpool willing to take the pillow talk beyond where I'm willing to go. Sadly, the biggest hit is Peter Parker, who has ZERO story here and becomes the co-worker you avoid in the hallway. The actual overarching story is quite engaging though, and that's what was really pulling me along; Avengers, Legends and the Suns getting all dark to take on some vampires and lovecraftian monsters.

I'm not a deck-builder fan, but this gameplay was interesting. Using environments, hero combos, and shaping your deck is a lot of fun, and fighting the battles requires you to use your head and treat every fight as if it were a puzzle. It's not a perfect puzzle, but there were several times I restarted a battle simply because I knew by the end of round 1 that it was not looking good for 616. Once you do get into a flow, the gameplay loop can be very satisfying, especially when you have the surrounding wilds of the home base to explore for a more 3rd person exploration experience, rewarding you with costumes. Costumes that require style, or skill, or sick points, or something like that to unlock, which requires more grinding in the combat arenas, etc, etc. Jumping between the two does help the monotony, but I also feel like a stiff board running around forest models.

The main problem is the pacing and length. There's a bunch of lore, I didn't read most of it. There's a ton of talking, I skipped most of it. This is a fun design that could've been streamlined down into a more narrative focused experience, but instead you have to go collect things around the building so you can discover things that people simply just won't tell you until you've plucked 10 flowers from the garden. I would've EASILY taken a screen system similar to XCom 2's, or at the very least provided an option to do these tasks on one screen. Perfect version for me, the game would play in 3rd person as you explore environments (collecting bathing suits or whatever), and then bam, bad guy jumps in, battle pulls out into overhead, choose your crew, bonuses, etc, start and finish fight, and move on down the path.

For an example. I have a powerful Captain Marvel card (she's dope in this game), and I want to make another copy of that card, so I can combine that card, in order to upgrade that card. Now, there could be an option that says "spend 10 random currency coins, 60 attack points, and 30 heroic points to upgrade this card now," but there isn't. So take yourself down to the underground forge, buy yourself up one card from Tony Stark, climb yourself back up them stairs, go to the outside forge, different than the underground one because this one has Blade, go into the pause menu and unequip the original card (you see, you can't combine it if it's currently equipped, so you have to remove it first) and replace it out for some reason, and then and go to- UH OH, you don't have the needed Blueprint to do that. Go back down to the forge, find out that you don't have enough of the OTHER skill points to make the needed blueprint, run across the building to Agatha's cauldron (not MCU version), and exchange out your points and that money that never gets explained, until you have enough to buy the blueprint, pay off Blade to make the combination, and enough to give that card a modifier afterwards, which is also in another menu!!! WHAT!? WHAT? Why? Stop making me jump through hoops every time I want to try a new deck strategy!

So, anyways, it's fun, but it's also kind of a mixed bag. Worth the sales price, and as you can see from playtime, it's kept my attention and lost it at various points as well. May update if I return, but at this point, I can't. The cookie-cutter ending we've been crawling towards for the past twenty hours is getting to be too much, and I'm tired of racing to get to an ending as predictable as a Scooby Doo episode. I know this sounds negative, but until you take Wolverine around an arena, just MOPPING THEM UP, dropping light poles on stragglers, all while wearing his original blue and yellow design- you truly haven't lived. There's magic in this game, but man, it's surrounded by a lot of darkness.

This game is long. Whether that's a good thing is up to you. It is stretched a bit thin in my opinion, with themes and story beats that become a touch repetitive.

That being said, this game is delightful.

It's sole purpose is to assemble a kind of Marvel dream team that you, the lauded and respected Hunter, can hang out with.

There will be cool abilities.

There will be sweet animations.

There will be deep combat.

There will be corny dialogue. Corny dialogue that makes you laugh. Corny dialogue that reminds you of why you like comic books in the first place.

This game is something special. A love letter to Saturday morning cartoons, Superhero pizza nights, and the concept of cool.

There is loads of charm here. Whether it is the banter between Tony Stark and Doctor Strange or the character introduction captions. The one liners in combat, the straight faced main character (who delivers his or her lines with such poise), or the times you get to hangout with your favorite hero. So charming.

That charm can't cover all blemishes, however. You have some rigid facial animations here and some truly sappy writing. Everyone is just a little too-nice to The Hunter. It's off character, like they produce some sort of happiness pheromone or something.

Even that aside, the characterizations are so strong you can look past it. But, can you look past it for over a hundred hours? It does get to be a bit much by the end of trying to level every friendship up to maximum.

For all that the combat remains deep and responsive. You have tactical, well animated, genuinely cool fights. The trial of trying to figure out how to defeat every enemy in one go is stimulating. This is a deep game that took me near 20 hours to start fully understanding how to plan and deconstruct a fight.

Also, Dracula can jump off a cliff. I'm so sick of him. Get the DLC.

This game is a gem. An unsung labor of love. I don't know that it sold well, but you can change that. Go purchase it. It is worth the considerable time spent playing.

I love this game it's fun to play the character costumization is good, the story is amazing I love the dark and light choices and the unlockables for the light and dark choices the card based battle mechanic is pretty good and requieres some strategy, I hope we get a sequal or another game like this.