Marvel's Avengers: An Interesting Story with Repetitive, Frustrating Gameplay

When Marvel's Avengers was released, I was hyped for the concept of multi-playing as one of the Avengers. I could get a few of my friends together and be the superheroes. But when they launched the demo, I was disappointed by the gameplay. It was too button mashy and I totally lost interest.

Then, through some unexpected luck, I got access to the game and I tried it out. I was pleasantly surprised by the story. Following the young superhero, Kamala Khan, it was great to be introduced to the world through the eyes of a fellow fan.

The story has quite an intriguing start. Chaos on A-Day and we get a bit more context to the demo. But then, with the intro scenes showing the Avengers blamed for A-Day, they disband.

Five years later, we are shown a world without the Avengers, a militaristic state governed by AIM, who claim to keep the city safe. We follow Kamala as she gets access to some evidence as to what triggered A-Day.

And as she journeys to Utah to find the resistance's secret base, she finds Dr. Banner/Hulk in the abandoned Avengers heli-carrier. Interspersed through these interesting story based sections is a grinding, button-mash based combat, with the useless levelling system.  

As I played more and more of the game, I realized that the game is about assembling the Avengers. Each character has a dramatic scripted entrance as they join your roster. This is evident as the next Avenger, Iron Man, joins the team. With his secret base in some hidden location, we are first given the quest to assemble his armor (the basic version). Though the mansion was amazingly detailed and designed, it was an annoying mission, which ended with a battle in his backyard.

Throughout the game, this is a recurring theme: Amazing graphics. Annoying combat. Even in easy, combat was a challenge. Power level associated to items & characters chosen and every time you switched a character, you would become underlevelled.

Throughout the game, this is a recurring theme: Amazing graphics. Annoying combat.

I majorly ignored side missions as I had no motivation or reason to play them, but I could feel the slight pressure to grind in their levelling system. In fact, for the pre-final mission, I had to grind quite a bit before I was levelled up enough to unlock the random drop of this one component needed to finish the mission. A number of game guides showed that getting the component was easy, but it turned out the missing factor was the matching level.

Boring, monotonous missions, which were mostly Capture the Flag/Stay in the boundaries, which just were so repetitive in the endlessly long levels. Maybe playing with friends, we could have made our own fun as we navigated through the levels.

On the other hand the story and cutscenes were amazing. In AIM, Monica and Tarleton, we have some interesting antagonists. With the aim to steal inhumans' powers and create adaptoids, Monica seems ruthless, the kind that stem from good intentions. The reveal that Cpt. America's blood was used to keep Tarleton aliev and leading to the creation of MODOK was mind blowing.

As the heroes assemble, from Ms. Marvel - Hulk - Iron Man - Black Widow (Tiny Dancer) - Thor - Cpt. America, we finally get our full team are ready to take the fight to the enemy. It was quite an interesting finale.

Final Thoughts

I did not expect to find myself assembling the Avengers. However, in those cases, each one's entry was epic. I looked forward to the next. Overall, I found the game a bit too grindy and seemed to actually be more fun if played with friends. I believe the fun we would have had together would have eclipsed the flaws.

The game is ok for a one time experience for the story, but I strongly advise to take some friends along for the ride. In the end, though my advice to you will be to avoid the game altogether because with its repetitive gameplay,  predictable story and grindy mechanics, you will find yourself get bored all too easily.