TL;DR: MPQ is a mediocre bejwelled style clone with addictive team oriented combat mechanics. The game is a harsh grind if you want to play seriously and very difficult if you desire to play it freemium. Play at your own peril!

*2017 Edit: Almost prophetically much of what I've complained about in this past review has been addressed over the last couple years of the game's existence. The addition of the champion system for max level heroes gives you the illusion of usefulness for the endless streams of duplicate covers you will get from your hard earned tokens. Similarly, the addition of command points gives you the illusion of being able to steer the titanic sized ship known as RNG instead of strictly using character tokens. These two solutions are fairly successful, I've never felt more in command of my roster which has grown exponentially. Whereas before it felt hopeless, now there is a semblance of being able to strategically construct my teams. I finally feel like I have a toe-hold and I've been able to begin the ascent to end-game and high level play. The new bottleneck for freemium players comes in the form of roster size. It seems like every month we get new characters which shuffle up the meta, an ostensibly great thing! The downside is that you want to keep everyone you get your hands on which is impossible. You're forced to make those hard and fast decisions of who to keep and who to let go and it can be tragic when you make the wrong choices so be sure to do your research!*

I really enjoy waiting for an hour between rounds while my characters heal... It's bearable at the start when it takes a couple minutes and you can play a few rounds, but it gets steadily worse. The difficulty curve is sharp after the introduction missions, that factor combined with the RNG bejeweled style board means that you'll be watching your heal timer a lot after a failed mission. The demand for cash from D3 publisher is inescapable if you actually want to play the game at any level of efficiency you might need to throw cash at this game.

The game gets a plus for having fun game play mixed with Marvel characters, but there are just too many drawbacks to make this game worth recommending. There is a loose RPG system in which you level up characters by collecting comic books, but it's marred by the fact that it too is RNG based (unless you use money). Some iconic characters are given to you at the start of the game, but everything you get afterwards is all random and the majority of heroes I've received thus far are terrible or useless. You need to continually advance in the game if you desire better rewards, but any impression of success is stymied when you get your seventh 'Hawk-Eye' in a row or some equally as rage worthy hero thanks to the RNG rewards. This game would be much better if there was a way to slowly work towards a hero comic that compliments your roster, one that you can chose and grind towards. Success would feel much better and the grind would be worth the effort if you could finally piece together your Marvel Dream Team and smite some foes with righteous fury. Instead you're forced to use valuable experience, recruitment tokens, and gold to expand your roster never knowing who you're going to get. I've got a 5/5/- black widow and I just keep getting her comic books, it's driving me insane...

The gameplay is a bit stiff in comparison to previous iterations of the PQ franchise and some attack animations are slow and repetitive. The graphics aren't anything to write home about and everything just feels slow. This game is a step backwards in almost every area and far too frustrating to be worth time or money. Just get Puzzle Quest 2 and enjoy that game, this debacle doesn't do the franchise justice and is a blemish on an otherwise amazing series of games.