Marvel’s Avengers Game Review

Marvel’s Avengers, developed by Crystal Dynamics, releases on September 4th, 2020. You begin on A-Day, the day the Avengers fell. From then on, our goal is to reassemble the Avengers and uncover what actually happened on A-Day. The Avengers campaign is quite endearing. Kamala Khan really exemplifies the players that play this game. Her excitement and general giddiness about meeting and fighting with the Avengers feels extremely relatable. I did, however, find it to be rather repetitive when I would be required to play as Ms. Marvel. I spent over half the campaign paying as a non-avenger while playing an Avengers game. As much as I liked Ms. Marvel as a character before, and for the most part during the game, I wanted to play as Cap, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Black Widow. Perhaps they should have thought about renaming this game Ms. Marvel’s Avengers. In the end, she does add something new to the story. She is one of the best upcoming heroes that Marvel has to offer. All things considered, I am glad Marvel and Square Enix chose to add her. I would have just enjoyed a more readily available option to switch from character to character in the Campaign.

After the Beta was released for Marvel’s Avengers, many people thought the combat was repetitive and dull. I never saw it that way. In fact, the combat is very versatile and fun. Every character is given moves and abilities that make each one feel unique. In every mission, you will find some enemies easier than others depending on the Hero you select. This makes it more interesting when playing with friends. My friends and I often found ourselves divvying up certain enemies which made missions much more fun and engaging.

As for the characters themselves, apart from being unique, they are well designed and cast. Tony Stark is played by Nathan Drake himself, Nolan North, and Bruce Banner is voiced by Troy Baker. Baker is an excellent actor that played Hawkey in Avengers Assemble. Not to mention, he is also Joel from The Last of Us. His performance was my favorite as he absolutely brought so much emotion and gravity to the character. Beyond just the acting, the characters are true to the comics. My only issue with them is that Tony was rather bland outside of the suit. He lacked a flamboyance about him that comes with most every Stark iteration.

Pre-ordering is clearly a cornerstone of this game’s marketing tactics causing questions revolving around the idea of game exclusivity to arise. Exclusives in gaming are nothing new. But, from cosmetics to collectibles, Marvel’s Avengers has partnered with an unusually high number of companies for in-game exclusives. Now, there is a far greater discussion needing to be had about this than I am able to cover in this article but clearly we need to figure out as consumers where the line is. I always saw exclusivity as a competitive way for consoles to gain customers over one another. In fact, I bought a PS4 specifically to play the Spider-Man game. In my opinion, it’s acceptable as long as it stays between console developers and does not limit gaming content while charging full price. For Marvel’s Avengers, this comes very near to the line for me and I would like to see less of this sort of exclusivity. Fortunately, the game’s cosmetic exclusives do not make it so that you are missing out on part of the core gameplay and as of release, is not limited in gameplay. This will change once Spider-Man is added for PS4 users only. When that happens we might need to reassess. But until then just know there are plenty of cosmetics and collectibles to be had in the game and you are not missing out on anything that you are paying for.

Other than the pre-order bonuses there are things that need to be addressed. First of all, there is a multitude of bugs and glitches. I have had Cap’s face melt off, Hulk fight in slow motion, blurry textures, and Kamala go bald. Second, missions can most definitely feel repetitive. I am able to look past it because I have a huge bias for anything Marvel. But I can understand how people can get tired of the same settings and mission types. I expect Marvel’s Avengers to release a game day patch for bug fixes, and the like. Still, an extra step is still required to address the lack of mission and location diversity.

The feature that is by far the best part of this game and that could sell me on its own, is the post-game. The post-game is called the Avengers Initiative and this is where the game earns its value. You and your team can tackle boss fights against the likes of Taskmaster and Abomination or just take on AIM and their occupying army of Adaptoids. The multiplayer, if done right, can give excellent gameplay over the next few years. I think that the full potential of this game will become more clear as new DLC characters in the form of heroes and villains become available. I would not recommend this game to anyone who is not a fan of Avengers or online co-op games like Destiny. For those people, they may want to wait on this purchase. Apart from that, I did not find the story to be compelling enough to carry the weight of a $60 game. But I hope the Avengers Initiative receives the attention it needs to keep building on itself because I am very excited to see where this game goes. With that said, Avengers is a must-buy for people who game with friends and who love Marvel.

My final rating for Marvel Avengers is one that I can only give if I split it in two. This is something I do not normally do but it feels wrong seeing as though most of my enjoyment came from one specific part of this game. The story mode for me was tedious at times and surprisingly lacked actual playable Avengers. It was a good story at its core and the gameplay was more than adequate. This unfortunately isn’t enough to make up for the lack of choice of Avenger and Cooperative play. My Marvel Avengers Campaign rating is a 6. I wanted more freedom and less hand-holding. I very much hope that this game gets better with stories that will drop for the newer characters. On the other hand, my rating for the Avengers Initiative is an 8… potentially. Like I said before, we can’t really tell where this game will go from here yet and how much will be added. I think they can do a lot with the characters they plan to add and hope they take full advantage of their already amazing cast of Heroes. If they continue treating this game as an online service with regular updates and additional content, I believe this will be a game to play for years to come.