Marvel Heroes developed by Gazillion is a Diablo style MMO in the Marvel universe. The game has been open beta for the past two months and has finally released for the PC platform. It has the right ideas in mind, but its execution is what defines the experience.
Marvel Heroes developed by Gazillion is a Diablo style MMO in the Marvel universe. The game has been open beta for the past two months and has finally been released for the PC platform. It has the right ideas in mind, but its execution is what defines the experience.
Brian Michael Bendis, whose work has been featured in Ultimate Spider-Man, New Avengers, House of M, Secret Invasion, and Avengers vs. X-Men, wrote the story in Marvel Heroes. The Cosmic Cube is once again at the center when Fantastic Four arch nemeses Doctor Doom obtains the object. The story is told us like a graphic novel with all of the in-game cutscenes hand drawn to help show us that we’re fighting alongside Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, and the rest of Marvel’s heroic library.
The gameplay is focused on Movement to movement action as its frantic, hack and slash combat. It achieves at what is doing by allowing us to have a wealth of different combat classes to choose from. If you prefer range classes then you might prefer heroes like Storm, and Hawkeye. But if you’re like me who prefers to melee finishers Hulk, Wolverine and Daredevil are fine heroes to chose from. The combat takes many aspects from Blizzards Diablo franchise geared towards the casual audience. This in theory might have been a good concept, but actually hurts the product.
Enemy diversity isn’t rare enough to keep it from repetitive. Boss fights in the game feature major villains featured in the comics that you face at the end of a dungeon, but the road getting there is often boring. Enemy AI will work in packs, but are so underpowered that it you won’t worry about defeating them. You will often run into the same groups of thug making the enjoyment of beating them less so after the thousand time of doing so. The lack of public areas where you can traverse, and level up is disheartening especially in the earlier levels.
This isn’t a MMO by any set of the imagination, and should be more compared to games like Diablo, where the action is centered on raiding dungeons and collecting loot. This is one territory that super hero games shouldn’t traverse because it makes the gameplay experience repetitive, and limits us from becoming super.
MH implements a crafting system that is the sole spotlight in the game. When you’re on a quest you will obtain items that will help you craft better gear. The focus on the system is on stat increases, and not on unlocking new heroes, but it has many flaws. Crafting materials don’t stack, filling up your inventory faster than it should. In-game tutorials don’t do enough to teach players the basics, and will leave them searching on Internet forms looking for answers.
