GAME-AS-SERVICEABLE

The supes have never looked or sounded as good as they do in MARVEL’S AVENGERS, but their best efforts feel in vain.

- Robert Zak

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT? A co-op focused looter-brawler set in Marvel’s Avengers universe

EXPECT TO PAY $60

DEVELOPER Crystal Dynamics

PUBLISHER Square Enix

REVIEWED ON Radeon 5700XT, Intel i7-4790K, 16GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER Yes

LINK avengers.square-enixgames.com/en-gb

As I continue chip away at Marvel’s Avengers after its campaign ends, and its hearty story recedes in the rearview mirror to be replaced by the stark plains of samey missions, it reminds me of the duality of so many superheroes. It straps on its tightest, glossiest spandex for the campaign and dazzles with its moves, but once that adventure ends and it returns to the daily grind of a multiplayer-oriented endgame, it blurs into the crowd. Inoffensive, yet indistinguishable but for IP it’s adorned with.

The frustrating thing about Marvel’s Avengers is that for the first few hours, you see hints of what it could have been—a visually spectacular and narratively wholesome adventure that does service to the IP—before its functional but unoriginal gameplay loop really takes over and you realize that that’s the actual game you’ll be spending most of your time with.