My thoughts after 250hrs in game

[NCPNC]

So I bought the legendary edition during one of the first discounts. I was very interested about new engine (comparing to outdated UE 3 in XCOM series) and new card mechanics. Beloved Marvel characters were promising as well.

I spent 250 hours in game, completed it twice, with different difficulty levels and with different character development. It was not a wasted time, but I can't get rid of the feeling, that MMS is simply rushed and unpolished product, which could be so much better...

1. Bugs
There are many, many bugs. Most of them are minor and no game-breaking, but they are still not fixed, even 4 months after the launch. Even worse - each of the DLC brought new bugs. Examples:
- localization and translation bugs, typos, missing localizations on some card descriptions etc
- glitches like two heroes occupying the same spot on the couch or broken Agatha head animations in some places
- game stuck when switching heroes while upgrading cards on the yard (introduced with Morbius DLC)
- game crashing after hero operations with raytracing enabled (comic book cover generation caousing this)
- bugged final battle with killed enemies stuck on the map and terrible performance (save/load is the only known workaround)
- bugged mission with Hulk purification using Scarlet Witch which fail if you have no revives left (introduced in one of the DLC)
- interface issues - some spots react properly on "E" key press or left mouse button hold, but some only on one of the above (like modificators of side missions late game)
- broken card preview for characters in the forge
- broken DLC characers achievments

All of the above shows that company didn't invest enough effort to test and fix their product and they still do not show engagement to fix the game, sadly.

2. Lack of polish
There are many things in the game, especially in the interface, that looks unfinished/unpolished. Examples:
- items selection menu before mission start lacks any kind of filtering nor the information about how many items each type you have. In addition, automatic item selection seems to be simply random and often items selected have no sense for the mission (like "delay the car" item when the mission is to kill all the bad guys)
- some screens offer you preview of the character's cards, while some don't (like hero ops missions)
- boring and repetitive T.H.R.E.A.T. missions which don't even makes sense, as the characters level up automatically with you
- all hero OPS mission are completed automatically and always end with success, although it clearly looks that devs wanted to put some additional content and value here

2. Linearity
The story is quite interesting during the first playthrough. During the second playthrough you'll start to see the weaker sides of the story and all the social stuff involved. Now I don't really want to start the third playthrough and spend hours to skip all that stuff, because it's like watching the same, long movie, over and over again... What's the point running around the abbey and picking up useless collective items from the same places AGAIN? Even the missions are repetitive.

I love single player games and I love to go back to them multiple times, as long as the game has something different to offer each time. MMS however is strictly linear and have only new game+ as an additional mode which IMHO doesn't really give any replay value. The game would be so much more with simply more game modes after you finish the story. In current state however is a (long and not bad) game for one or two playthroughs before you are fed up.

3. Rewards
If you ever played Diablo or similiar game you know why it's so addictive - it rewards the player who kill monsters by better stuff which will allow you to kill more challenging monsters, and they will give you better stuff, and so on. Here you are rewarded mostly by currency which gives you a possibility to buy visuals and cosmetic changes, like different colour palletes of the character outfit. It would be a nice addition to the game, but as a main reward in time it's simply... disappointing after a couple of hours.

4. Progression
So you are levelling up your characters to allow them to beat the bad guys easier, because through the game bad guys become tougher. This is how it works in the games in general and it's perfectly fine. In MMS however bad guys automatically adjust to your level, so the challenge depends only on diffculty level and the whole level up thing is more or less pointless.

5. Visuals and optimization
In general MMS doesn't look bad, but it looks uneven. Some models, textures and animations looks amazing, and others look cheap and dated. Performance and optimization is far from perfect, and RT is simply broken. What's funny, in-game cinematics look much better then actual cinematics...

In general I enjoyed the game and the story, but I am also dissapointed. With more time, heart, support and investment it would be an amazing title you would like to experience over and over again (like XCOM series). It seems however that developers put most of the effort to the story and character relations. It would be a great addition to the great game. However, as a game core, with all linear stuff around, it makes the game experience more like an interesting movie, which you'll inevitably put on the shelf after you watch it once or twice.

[blkbutterfly]

Re: bugs

You clearly don't play Civ
Civ VI is plagued with bugs and exploits. So many it is a sport amongst YouTubers to find and post them first!

(Civ is Firaxis studios "other" franchise if you didn't know).

MMS is miles more polished than Civ VI after 6(?) years!

[kingts]

It took my son three days after completing the main story line, that the game was over. That playing redundant 1 a day battles merely to tweak your capped 8 cards in a 3 vs model card battler system that is trapped in its design in many areas (as is) was a waste of time.
He was not interested in new costumes, collecting plants for cards, going through the same tiring animation sequences. Their choices confined your game play.
Very beautiful game, wonderful animation sequences, voice overs, fun story.

Game should not have gone the card battler route. It should have been a RPG inventive large warband turn based game with massive cities, 3rd person perspectives, and great animation sequences that not only fit the faction warfares you were fighting with consequences, goals, and super hero warfare fun. Freedom Force did it successfully 30 years ago.
Now if you have played 500 hours, want to keep going in cricles so you can have x8 first strike variations of one card to build op decks that wipe out every enemy in one turn fun, knock yourself out
120.00 for a main game and 4 dlcs, that are now creating issues with the game, sounds like a steep lesson to me.

[Captain Kirk]

Based on my enjoyment of Marvel, turn-based tactics, and TCGs, the $120 price tag is worth it for the enjoyment I've gained. Though I will agree the game could use more polish and game modes for after beating the game. As far as a massive Marvel turn-based RPG I say bring it on! I played Freedom Force 1 and 2 a ton back in the day and even made a mod for Freedom Force 2.

[Cirative]

How the hell did you put in 250 hours? I got like 91 hours and even that was stretching it.

[undeadpriest94]

This is a very detailed critique on the game's flaws. I can believe the gameplay and story are good and I heard lots of negativity on the interactions, bugs, repetition, lack of endgame and replay value, optimization, visuals and lack of polish, but didn't know how poor the rewards and leveling up were.

[Dr. Best]

Originally posted by Cirative:

How the hell did you put in 250 hours? I got like 91 hours and even that was stretching it.

320 hours so far

I enjoyed the story a lot but it's long completed, after that it's experimenting with different deck, mod and hero combinations, and optimization for optimization's sake.

Originally posted by kingts:

Now if you have played 500 hours, want to keep going in cricles so you can have x8 first strike variations of one card to build op decks that wipe out every enemy in one turn fun, knock yourself out

That sums it up pretty nicely tbo

[Surtsey]

I'm at 385.7 hours in the game. I think I was at the 100 hour mark when I decided to finish the story, as I kept buffing heroes with general missions before taking on more story missions. I played 90% of my total hours so far on difficulty: Ultimate 3 - highest.

To me, the game actually opened up after the story's conclusion. I felt there was enough cinematics, story, and side quests during the core story (in the form of friendship, drama, havens/hangouts) that I kept itching for the opportunity to focus on only missions -- the battle part -- and that opportunity to just sink my teeth into those over and over without a lot of dialogue never really came until the end.

The battles are the funnest part of the game, especially when the stakes are high and enemies can two-shot a hero if you don't have a strategy. I continue to find that tension addictive. There have been real nail-biters at times, as well as getting stomped or doing the stomping. And being limited to one mission per in-game day, it's been great to be able to just ignore most of the extracurricular activities (except sparring; never skip sparring), focus on a battle, go to bed, wake up, spar, mission, bed, repeat.

This is the only repeatable way to do things that I enjoy the most and most frequently. Because the story is over, I get to take this approach. You needn't start a New Game+, although I might some day after all of the DLC is released.

It was, and is, a wonderful game. I have enjoyed it thoroughly.

[Captain Kirk]

Originally posted by Surtsey:

I'm at 385.7 hours in the game. I think I was at the 100 hour mark when I decided to finish the story, as I kept buffing heroes with general missions before taking on more story missions. I played 90% of my total hours so far on difficulty: Ultimate 3 - highest.

To me, the game actually opened up after the story's conclusion. I felt there was enough cinematics, story, and side quests during the core story (in the form of friendship, drama, havens/hangouts) that I kept itching for the opportunity to focus on only missions -- the battle part -- and that opportunity to just sink my teeth into those over and over without a lot of dialogue never really came until the end.

The battles are the funnest part of the game, especially when the stakes are high and enemies can two-shot a hero if you don't have a strategy. I continue to find that tension addictive. There have been real nail-biters at times, as well as getting stomped or doing the stomping. And being limited to one mission per in-game day, it's been great to be able to just ignore most of the extracurricular activities (except sparring; never skip sparring), focus on a battle, go to bed, wake up, spar, mission, bed, repeat.

This is the only repeatable way to do things that I enjoy the most and most frequently. Because the story is over, I get to take this approach. You needn't start a New Game+, although I might some day after all of the DLC is released.

It was, and is, a wonderful game. I have enjoyed it thoroughly.

+1. Though I am around 230 hours, this is where much of my enjoyment stems. I would love to play through the story and battles again with the full cast (including Storm), but without the extra grind. I am enjoying Wasteland 3 right now so I will hopefully be ready to jump back into the grind on an NG+ once Storm is released.

[treahnurb]

Know what I am missing? Romance. They put so much effort and time into this whole friendship thing, tons of hang out dialogues and banter and whatsoever and really, we don't get to pick any of them to ride into the sunset?

[NiCKoiSeR]

Originally posted by Surtsey:

To me, the game actually opened up after the story's conclusion. I felt there was enough cinematics, story, and side quests during the core story (in the form of friendship, drama, havens/hangouts) that I kept itching for the opportunity to focus on only missions -- the battle part -- and that opportunity to just sink my teeth into those over and over without a lot of dialogue never really came until the end.

The battles are the funnest part of the game, especially when the stakes are high and enemies can two-shot a hero if you don't have a strategy. I continue to find that tension addictive. There have been real nail-biters at times, as well as getting stomped or doing the stomping. And being limited to one mission per in-game day, it's been great to be able to just ignore most of the extracurricular activities (except sparring; never skip sparring), focus on a battle, go to bed, wake up, spar, mission, bed, repeat.

+1

450 hours here. Waiting for Storm for start a new campaign while messing with photo mode: https://imgur.com/a/pivUIZH

[MaxPrimal]

I have 208 hours and have enjoyed every hour.

[Brodie]

I feel that the game is not really replayable once you have finished the first playthrough. For me there is no reason to play it again, and the DLCs even maybe interesting are not worth the effort to play the same linear story again.

There is no true management and having all the heroes available with no death means that probably another playthrough will not be fun, the difficulty levels seems also unbalanced, some kind of... "as we haven't properly balanced the game you have 9 difficulty levels so you can balance it as you need" the only way I see to beat the hardest levels is farming friendship through playthroughs which is not what I look for in a game.

I also miss the Xcom style replayability with more management, different choices and teams to train, some story missions (4-5) and a time mechanic pushing you to learn to play better to win.

That said, I have enjoyed the game (107 hrs), but I wont waste more money on it until there is a game mode that could make me feel that I am in command of a team of heroes that I have to train to succeed and adapt to what the games randomly throws at you (maybe random hero recruitment). These fixed story with more than 50 fixed story missions with fixed conversations (boring even through the firts playthrough) with "The Sims"-like interactions (the world is about to collapse but we have time enjoy a film in the couch and talk about our feelings every night...) are not calling me to replay it.

These guys did a great job with a total mechanic rework with War of the Chosen, If they do something similar with another game mode focusing in team training and management instead of friendship farming this game could have a second life for me.

[wpegg]

Originally posted by Brodie:

<snip>

107 hours is pretty good value for a game, there aren't that many in my collection that have breached the 100 mark (this is one of them).

[Simpson3k]

My thought after 120 hours is, that i really do like hazelnut icecream,

[HozzMidnight]

How can you possibly be disappointed in a game you played for 250 hours? That is mind blowing to me. I have been on Steam for over a decade and I have exactly one game, Witcher 3, that I have played for more than 200 hours. If I get an hour of entertainment per dollar, that is a win for me.