When Activision released the original X-Men Legends it was perhaps the closest a superhero videogame came to matching the fantasy worlds created by more popular Japanese RPGs. On paper a superhero RPG sounds like a home run, after all comic books already immerse their readers in a fantasy world, so allowing people to interact with this world is just the next logical step right?
However since X-men legends 1, activision has committed itself to trimming down the actual content of the games in favor of needless hype. Think about it, X-men legends 2 featured a united X-men and brotherhood of evil mutants, however if you keenly noticed the game was about half as big as its predecessor. Then marvel ran countless ads for their "ultimate alliance" the first version of which was about as big as legends 2. On top of that while other games such as fable, final fantasy, etc. were featuring more open-ended games MUA was about as linear as you could get, even in the alternate endings (i mean how is it possible that I wipe out the entire mutant race and at the same time create government funding for X-men style schools?).
MUA2 unfortunately does absolutely nothing to right this ship. There are three things that this game does right and it should be to its credit, the new Fusion system is awesome and a lot of fun to play with, the choice to be Pro or anti registration is pretty cool, and the game accurately recreates the backgrounds featured in the Marvel Comics Civil War plotline. I tip my hat to the graphics designers and other artists, they did a great job.
Now to the bad. If you thought legends 2 and MUA1 were short you are in for quite a treat here, I finished the game (first run) in under 10 hours. You read that right an RPG that's beatable in 10 hours. and the "choice" to be pro or anti reg really isn't all that marvel was hyping it to be. As a matter of fact outside of two various sets of missions it doesn't really appear to have that much of an impact on the actual rest of the game. Now add in the fact that the graphics designers didn't add make cut scenes more organic. The whole point of MUA is to control a team of heroes that have a significant impact on things to come. However watching spiderman listen to a briefing while hunched over not able to see over the table where the briefing is, makes you feel like you're just a replaceable part of the story. Once again character interactions leave a lot to be desired, unlike other RPGs where character interaction is fun and leads to all kinds of extra goodies and information, here its so pointless I mostly ignored it. Here's an idea for activision, how about taking one of those old MUA or X-men legends map and turn it into a side quest apart from the central plot, to unlock a bonus or even a secret ending? But gosh that'd make too much sense, why not just keep the same dry plot and hammer it to death with such exhilarating dialogue as "i know we're on the right side" "we made the right choice" " i don't trust any of them" etc...
Recently the head of activision admitted that the spiderman games the company was producing sucked and they needed to get back on track. Somebody should buy him a copy of this game and a copy of fable, and final fantasy 10-2 and ask him if this franchise too "sucks". With DC setting the standard in movies "The Dark Knight" and Videogames "Arkham Asylum" Marvel has a lot of ground to cover. Games such as these just make that gap even bigger...Get more detail about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.
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