Review: Marvel’s Avengers

After years of waiting, Marvel’s Avengers is the first major game with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that replicates the scope and scale of the beloved films. While it’s heavily flawed, it does so much right.

Marvel’s Avengers takes place five years after our heroes fail to save the day. San Francisco is destroyed, Captain America is “killed”, and thousands of people are granted powers and are labeled as “inhumans”. The Avengers are blamed and disband, leaving the world vulnerable.

A science company known as AIM has risen up to try to control the aftermath of this catastrophe but its clear their true intentions are far more sinister. After finding incriminating proof, a young inhuman known as Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) takes it upon herself to expose AIM and reunite the Avengers.

The story of Marvel’s Avengers is by far and away its best trait. It’s heartwarming, charming, action-packed, and it understands these characters deeply without copy and pasting other versions. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to carve out pieces of what made the characters from the films great, it’s very much its own thing.

Tony Stark is funny, but he’s not riffing at a mile a minute like Robert Downey Jr.. Captain America is stoic but he doesn’t feel like Chris Evans’ man out of time. This Bruce Banner is completely different than Mark Ruffalo’s. He’s incredibly subdued, afraid, and is perhaps the most deeply effected by the events of the game.

Kamala Khan helps balance out all these characters. She’s the fish out of water fangirl with an extreme level of courage and nobility. She represents that piece of optimism that the Avengers have forgotten. I was worried that her character would be just a copy of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man at first but she’s not. Her culture, her heart, and more all give so many unique layers to her character.

She’s undoubtedly the heart of the story. I wasn’t expecting to be emotional during this game but there were a handful of touching moments that caused me to get misty-eyed because of her. It’s hard not to imagine that Kamala Khan will become a new mainstream fan favorite superhero after this.

Marvel’s Avengers gets to the heart of what makes these characters and stories so beloved. It’s not their powers and epic battles, it’s who they are as people and figures. It’s about the empowerment, the purity, and greater humanity that lies deep within the stories. The core of the game is about understanding what makes someone good or a hero.

“Good is not a thing you are, it’s a thing you do.” This message is constantly reiterated throughout the game. These kinds of messages have legs that stretch to all ages, all genders, and all races. Superhero stories are unifying and Marvel’s Avengers embodies that in a way few other games do.

Unfortunately, Marvel’s Avengers goes the opposite route in its gameplay and structure. It aims to capitalize on the things plenty of other games are doing. While playing as each hero is fun, diverse, and exciting, it’s surrounded by so much… stuff. Instead of doing a simple 4-player co-op game, Crystal Dynamics opted to make it this ever-evolving game.

This meant adding loot and all this other stuff that just simply doesn’t fit. It’s not because it feels like its out of place in Avengers game (although it is), it’s that it’s poorly integrated. All the screens feel busy with numbers, progression meters, currencies, and colors. There are so many systems and things to keep track of that it becomes exhausting.

After dozens of hours of playing, I rarely ever thought about my gear and I never got excited about earning new gear. It has no cosmetic appearance on your character, its effects largely go unnoticed, and you swap everything out super frequently. In Destiny, I tend to hold on to pieces of gear for many hours and even days/weeks. In Marvel’s Avengers, I’m swapping my pieces out after every mission or two. It makes upgrading your gear feel redundant because you know you’re just going to throw it away in 30 minutes.

It becomes a game of just making sure your character is appropriately leveled for the next encounter. The game also discourages you from some content until you’ve gotten enough high leveled gear to play it. Why? Just because. You don’t feel stronger, you don’t feel more prepared, it’s just to artificially extend playtime.

While I can appreciate the accessibility of Marvel’s Avengers, its structure is very questionable. You can come in and play it as a 12 – 15 hour single player game if you want, almost completely ignoring a lot of this loot stuff or co-op. But for those who want to invest in the loot aspect, you won’t get much from it.

It also has this weird hybrid campaign. Some of the story missions can be played in co-op, some are single-player only. This means you will have to jump in and out of your friends session, wait for them to get another co-op mission, and then rinse and repeat. A lot of these story co-op missions also feel half-baked. They’re not on the scale of the single-player ones. They lack the big setpieces and intensity, which is something that would be great to experience with friends.

The campaign is very much a single-player affair but I wish they had just committed to that instead of doing it the way they did. The co-op Warzone missions are far more enjoyable, they can be done solo but are more fun with some pals.

While repetitive, it gives you a chance to just enjoy the gameplay and marvel at the basic concept of the game. You could be fighting enemies as Kamala and then all of a sudden, another player flies over you for a bombing run as Iron Man. Another player could be violently slamming someone into the ground as Hulk or swinging their hammer around as Thor.

The combat, while simple, is almost exactly what it needs to be. Each hero feels unique and has the right amount of weight to them. It feels like you could pluck each hero out of this game and place them into their own solo game without changing much to make them work. For as long as it took us to get good solo Batman and Spider-Man games, it’s truly astonishing that we got a game that nails the feel of six different heroes.

The only place the combat really feels lacking for me is in the dodging and countering. It’s not satisfying and often feels too clunky. I often found myself just rolling out of the way of everything instead of trying to time my counters because it somehow felt confusing and unenjoyable to do.

Even with the rather enjoyable combat, it’s hard to imagine these Warzone missions keep people engaged for as long as the game wants. While you might feel that 30+ hours is worth your $60, this is a game that wants you around for way longer. Running through the same forests, science facilities, and tundras can only keep you hooked for so long. Maybe its content updates will prove worthwhile but as it is, it will likely have trouble keeping people engaged.

People can only fight robots and mechs for so long before getting bored. If there were more villains, perhaps it would be interesting but there are only three Marvel baddies in the whole game. Two of them re-appear in endgame content after the campaign but again, these are re-appearances. You’ve already fought them once by this point. We’ll undoubtedly see more added over time but right now, it feels like we should be fighting more than bigger robots as bosses.

The Verdict

Marvel’s Avengers only just staggers its way to being a game worthy of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. An incredibly compelling story, rich characters, and some moments fans have always longed for only carry it so far. The competing visions for an online and single player game make for a confusing, uneven experience. The foundation laid by Crystal Dynamics is sturdy enough to give the game great potential for the future but right now, it’s a mixed bag.