It has always been my understanding that a sequel is meant to expand upon and improve features from the original game. I must be wrong about this, because Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 fails in almost every aspect of that concept.
While the gameplay made former games in the series (I am including X-Men Legends here) refreshing and fun at first, it is now old, repetitive and lacking polish. It seems for everything on the plus side of MUA2 there are one or two downsides. Allow me to elucidate...
This is an action RPG in a similar style to the Gauntlet series. You may choose from a roster of 24 superheroes and villains to create a team of four to do battle in different missions. On the plus side you can easily switch out your heroes at any point in the game. On the downside this is a tedious task that requires a 3-5 second load time for every character you want to do it with.
The RPG part of the game has been greatly dumbed down to the point where it might as well not even exist. There are few choices you have to make your characters unique. There is no loot to pick up and while you can usually choose how to spend your power points when you level up, I had to fight with the game a few times to make sure auto-spend would stay turned off. The upside is this may have made the game more streamlined for a wider audience, however, the downside is it also took away the game's depth, making it less interesting for returning players. Even the alternate costumes have been reduced, as each character only has one here as opposed to three in the last game.
The only real addition to gameplay from the last game is "fusion" attacks. These allow you to combine any two heroes' powers for devastating effects that can either wipe out a room full of enemies or do heavy damage to a single target, depending on which heroes you combine. On the upside the effects look great and there are over 200 different combinations. On the downside a lot of these are exactly the same attacks with slightly different special effects depending on which hero you use; so be prepared to see them over and over again.
The story is mostly ripped right from the comics and follows the Secret War and Civil War threads. I have been told that these are some of the best story arcs in Marvel's recent history -- so MUA2's story is pretty good. The Civil War is where the meat is and this involves the government starting a Superhuman Registration Act, which splits the hero community down the middle for those anti- or pro- the Act. You will get to make your choice in the game's second act (there are three in total) which will affect some of the characters you will have access to and which missions you get for that act. However, most of the missions are actually the same, just from a different perspective. For example, instead of attacking a convoy you will be protecting it. This also affects which boss characters you will fight along the way.
The roster of characters is fun and interesting (plus there's always room for more later on through DLC). While everyone will have their favourites and some are definitely more useful than others, it is reasonably balanced. If only the same could be said for the voice acting, some of which is truly awful. (Thor, I am looking at you.) I actually found it so bad that it was funny, but your sense of humour may vary.
One improvement over the last game is the graphics. This certainly is a good-looking game in most places. The upside is that the characters and lighting are done well, but the downside comes in the environments. Some of them almost look like they were taken straight from the last game. There were two or three stages where the environments really stood out for me and looked great. These were all outdoors and mostly during the daytime. When the game goes inside its bases, bunkers and usual comic book facilities the game just looks bland and uninspired. It is a pity there wasn't more use of the better-looking environments.
Once again, you can play up to four-player co-op either online or at home. This can be both fun and chaotic at times. You see, everyone shares the health tokens, which are used for healing and reviving downed teammates, and so it is easy for someone to be greedy and use up the two tokens the team has access to. My online experience was also riddled with problems. This may simply be a result of New Zealand's laggard broadband speeds, but NZ players should beware: there was a one second lag when I was playing online.
MUA2 feels unpolished. Three times the game crashed everyone's consoles in multiplayer, forcing us all to reboot. It crashed twice on me in single-player, at one point making my entire screen go a bright green -- and not with envy, I assure you. My character fell through the floor at one point. The end-game credits kept freezing while scrolling jerkily up the screen. I could go on (and on), but suffice to say, this is not a polished product. There are some great games where you can forgive a few technical flaws or a scruffy finish (Mass Effect for example) but for average games, which is what Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is, they simply cannot be ignored.
I was really looking forward to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 but in the end it is a disappointing sequel in every way. It is buggy, unpolished, adds very little to the formula and it's repetitive. While the co-op can be fun, there are simply better games out there with smoother online experiences. If you are a fan of the original games, like the idea of some button-mashing, superpower blasting action, and can accept that this is more of the same but with the RPG elements dumbed down, then you may find some fun to be had in this superhero bash. Otherwise, forget it.
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