Ever since 2008, the MCU exploded onto movie screens with the debut of the first and excellent Iron Man film. After the success of Iron Man, the Avengers characters have been household names thanks to more blockbuster movies being made.
The Avengers is arguably bigger than Star Wars now with Avengers: Endgame becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time in 2019. Despite all this movie’s success, we have never had an Avengers video game until now.
In the past, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America had their own video games in the PS3/Xbox 360 generation. After 2011 or so, surprisingly all of the superhero games disappeared apart from Spider-Man and Batman.
Well, it’s now 2020 and we finally see the release of Marvel’s Avengers. While this game isn’t based on the MCU, it tries its best to stand on its own feet by being an original take on the popular Avengers characters you know and love.
In this game, a catastrophic incident occurs by the evil AIM organization that left several people with special powers, and others lay dead. The Avengers are blamed for this incident which causes them to disband for five years.
Knowing that AIM isn’t as they say they are, Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel) finds evidence to clear the Avengers’ name. Not only that, but she wishes to bring the team back together in order to thwart AIM’s real sinister plans of world domination.
While I did find the main story to be interesting and unpredictable at times, some people may dislike the amount of screentime/gameplay time of their favorite characters.
Even though the main story can be completed in around 10 to 12 hours depending on the difficulty setting, some of the main characters are severely under-utilized.
Kamala Khan is basically the main character, and she does not get to interact with the rest of the team until she finds them later in the game. Hulk has a decent part in the story because he’s found first. Iron Man and Black Widow also have many levels dedicated to them as well.
As for Thor and Captain America, they’re barely in the main story at all. I think I only used Thor once or twice during the main campaign. Captain America is also not used much in the story either.
As a whole though, the whole team doesn’t get a chance to fully assemble until the last two missions. That being said, you can play to choose as every character once you start the endgame content.
In terms of gameplay, I actually enjoyed several parts of Marvel’s Avengers mainly because you get a chance to play as different characters. Many of the Avengers have unique abilities and this somewhat diversifies the gameplay.
For example, Hulk is a strong maniac and he specializes in melee combat. Iron Man is pretty cool to play as too because he can fly around levels and shoots lasers from his hands. The best part of being Iron Man is also getting a chance to suit up as the Hulkbuster temporarily.
I actually liked playing as Black Widow and Captain America too. They were good at hand-to-hand combat, plus throwing Captain America’s shield and enemies always feel really satisfying.
Some people might feel like the gameplay can get repetitive sometimes though. This is thanks to the linear level design as you are constantly forced to face up against the same old AIM robots and soldiers over and over again!
Some of the levels are just narrow corridors that aren’t that exciting to explore. There are a few levels that feel more open, although these experiences were too few and far between during my playtime.
There are a few boss fights added in, but some of them can feel long and boring. This is due to you need to constantly find their weak spots and it can take a while to drain their entire life bar as a result of this.
However, there are some epic moments that I will not spoil from the campaign despite its relatively short length. I did enjoy the campaign, although I wish it would have lasted longer than it did.
After finishing the campaign, there is a lot of other side content you can play. The fight against AIM isn’t over as you can play other missions where you can find better gear for your characters. You can also try to level up in order to find more costumes for your favorite characters as well.
Marvel’s Avengers is a team-up game and it’s enjoyable to play with other people online. If you don’t feel like playing the game with real people, you can always team up with the AI instead and they’re usually helpful.
The only disappointing thing about teaming up is the fact that you cannot do any offline multiplayer. This would have been the perfect game to have split-screen gameplay, but sadly none of that is available here.
You also cannot change playable characters once a mission has started. You have to stick to being one character. This makes sense when playing with others online, but I would have liked to have swapped characters when I was playing the single-player story.
Graphically, Marvel’s Avengers looks the part of a huge blockbuster movie. Aside from some boring linear levels, the character models look pretty good in my opinion. Hulk himself looks much better here than he did in the 2003 Hulk movie!
However, some people may still not like the overall character designs. You just have to accept that this is an original game and that it’s not based on the more popular MCU movies.
Marvel’s Avengers – Verdict
Marvel’s Avengers has a good campaign, and I’m surprised by how much I liked the overall game. Sure the gameplay can feel repetitive, but I enjoyed playing as many different characters. The main thing that disappointed me though is the lack of offline multiplayer and the repetitive endgame content. Aside from that, I still enjoyed beating up bad guys as the Avengers.
[Editor’s Note: Marvel’s Avengers was reviewed on the PS4 Pro platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
