zenith16
Avenger
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2008
- Messages
- 37,410
- Reaction score
- 227
- Points
- 48
INNOVATION 7
Marvel Heroes doesnt break the mold when it comes to the ARPG, but what it does do differently is fully embrace its MMO elements. You wont only encounter players in hubs; youll see them almost everywhere. Depending on your ability to suspend your disbelief, it can be a bit jarring seeing 10 Wolverines running around, but this has become less and less of an issue as the games roster grows. There are just so many characters that you arent always seeing the same ones running around anymore. Unlike most ARPGs, theres also content in Marvel Heroes that is designed explicitly for groups, such as the aforementioned X-Defense and Raids.
POLISH 7
Polish has been an issue with Marvel Heroes since launch and unfortunately that is still true today. Things have improved for sure, but the game is still buggier than it should be at this point and game performance runs the gamut from inconsistent to abysmal depending on the activity youre participating in and the patch version youre playing on. Im running a beast of a rig and the games frame rate can fly all over the place, especially in the Midtown patrol zone.
I would say the UI is adequate, but just barely. What frustrates me most is the presentation of information. Its still hard to make sense of a lot of the games numbers without having to resort to going to the games forums and other out of game resources. Why not take a page out of Diablo IIIs book and give us an easier way to compare the effects of a new item at a glance? Or how about being able to find out the max roll of an item simply by looking at it? Theres a lot of information available in the UI, but its simply frustrating to digest at times.
LONGEVITY 9
As weve discussed, theres a pretty significant amount of content available to play through in Marvel Heroes and theres new stuff coming to the game all the time, including both new characters and systems. With tons of characters to level, even more items to hunt, and the massive Omega alternate advancement system, you have a game that you can buckle down and play for the long haul. The only catch is that actual fresh new content to consume is slower to come to the game, so youll be running a lot of the same stuff over and over. To be fair, variety has continued to grow with time and running things over and over sort of comes with the territory for ARPGs anyway.
SOCIAL 8
Marvel Heroes is both a group and solo friendly game. If you want to jump into the game and just solo through the vast majority of the games content, nothing will stand in your way. That said, the game is also rewarding in groups. Modes like X-Defense and Raids are exclusive to groups, but even running content that be played solo is often beneficial as a group. For example, repeatable Legendary (semi randomized repeatable quests) Quests in Midtown are far easier to complete in a group since other players kills count towards your quest even if they are in an entirely different area of the zone. Gazillion also recently introduced a Shared Quest system that directly encourages players to group up for a variety of content each day; though the rewards could be a bit better.
Its simply easy to group up and play with others in Marvel Heroes and even if you arent into grouping youll often find non-committal opportunities to team up with other players in the form of zone events that you can dart in and out of as you please.
The one area that I feel Marvel Heroes could stand to improve on when it comes to its social experience is with guilds. The game features an incredibly barebones guild system at the moment and with how often characters team up in the comics I think this is an area of unmined potential that sticks out like a sore thumb.
VALUE 10
How free is Free-to-Play? We have to ask this question with every F2P game we review and as for Marvel Heroes, its pretty damn free. Gazillion has adopted the League of Legends model where they primarily make their money off of cosmetics and boosts, while giving players the option to earn just about everything else, including characters, for free. When you start up the game and play for the first time youll be given a number of heroes to select from and whichever hero you select is yours to play forever. If that hero happens to also be your favorite Marvel character ever, well, youre basically set.
Now, if you want to buy costumes for said hero, youll have to fork over some cash (costumes do drop, but dont expect to see it happen), but other than that you dont really need to spend a dime. You could plop a few bucks down for some increased bank space and maybe a Team Up (follower character) if you like, but you wont find any barriers blocking you from playing through any of the games content.
CONCLUSION
Like Steve Rogers, Marvel Heroes initially had its heart in the right place, but was lacking everywhere else. Fortunately, the game has improved enough over the past year that the results are about as dramatic as Steves eventual transformation into Captain America via the Super Soldier Serum. Its basically a whole new game at this point. If youre looking for a game that effectively meshes elements of both the MMO and ARPG genres and you love (or dont mind) the Marvel IP, you cant really go wrong with Marvel Heroes.
Michael Bitton / Michael began his career at the WarCry Network in 2005 as the site manager for several different WarCry fansite portals. In 2008, Michael worked for the startup magazine Massive Gamer as a columnist and online news editor. In June of 2009, Michael joined MMORPG.com as the site's Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter @eMikeB
Final Score 8.2
Pros
Easy on your wallet
Exciting blend of MMO and ARPG elements
Your favorite Marvel characters come to life Cons
Lack of enemy variety
Mediocre performance and polish
Somewhat dated visuals
source:Hub4 Heroes.com& MMORPG.com
0 
thanks i will download game then .
97 
