State of the Game: Marvel Heroes 2015

By – Thomas Faust

Marvel Heroes reminds me of the time when Saturday mornings were the best part of the week. Gazillion’s superhero Action-MMO had quite the rocky start two years ago, but it’s more than fair to say the game is back on track. It lacks the grimness of DC licensed games or the complexity of the latest Marvel feature films. Instead, Marvel Heroes feels very much like a gigantic story arc from all of your Saturday morning Marvel cartoons mashed into one.

Whatever the ridiculous pretense to add more bad guys from the rich cosmos of Marvel lore is, you can be sure that the game jumps at every chance to do so. The same logic applies to the roster of currently 50 playable heroes, ranging from fan-favorites to lesser-known characters. Of course, all of the iconic Marvel heroes are here: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, you name ’em. Whatever superhero you think of first when you hear the word “Marvel”, they are probably playable. What’s more, the game has been branching out into supervillain territory, adding the likes of Doctor Doom and Magneto to the roster as well, so there’s enough potential content for years to come.

The game itself is a fast-paced action RPG. That’s barely surprising, considering that David Brevik, who was one of the lead designers of the first two Diablo games and founder of Blizzard North in the nineties, is Marvel Heroes’ figurehead. All of the genre standards, such as skill trees, loot drops, and crafting, are present and par for the course. Your average evil minions are pretty much cannon fodder, posing little challenge. Boss fights, on the other hand, are a tad harder and require at least some basic tactical approach. A campaign, separated into chapters and introducing you to different locales, leads you all the way to max level, and a fair bit of extra content and regular events keeps you busy when you reached the magic 60.

Of course, you can just start the whole journey over with another hero, which is something the game even encourages by giving you extra stat boosts when a number of your characters have reached certain levels. Instead of having different character slots, you can just turn into another hero on the fly, which is a major convenience. It’s also worth noting that no two heroes play alike. Gazillion really did a bang-up job with the varied roster that caters to just about all kinds of players out there.

Most importantly, the game is fun. I cannot shake the feeling that a lot of the gameplay was conceived with the notion of player enjoyment taking precedence over actual usefulness. That feeling of flying around with Storm, blowing everything in your wake to smithereens, is hard to put in words. The same goes for commanding a huge army of ants as Ant-Man or taking out multiple baddies at once with one throw of your nunchucks as Daredevil. There might be other, more useful skills in your arsenal, but the flashy or silly ones are just too nice to pass over. And this might very well be the core – or rather heart – of Marvel Heroes 2015: it’s a lot of dumb fun, and in my book this is enough to recommend the game.

As a Free to Play game, Marvel Heroes’ business model warrants closer inspection. You get one free hero right from the start, and you can play every single hero up to level 10. Additional heroes usually cost between $5 and $15. However, thanks to log-in rewards on your second day of playing you’ll get another free hero basically right away. If you stick to those starting heroes, it’s entirely possible to play through the whole game without ever paying one single cent. This being a game about spandex-clad superheroes, there just have to be additional costumes, all of which can be unlocked by paying $5 to $10 a pop. Those costumes are in no way mandatory and purely cosmetic.

Additionally, there are several bundles available where you’ll get a new hero, a couple of costumes, and some other fluff for a discount – those usually run you between $15 and $25, and they’re probably a pretty good deal if you really love a particular hero. Another thing probably worth paying for are Team Ups, computer-controlled sidekicks that help you dish out some extra damage on the battlefield or supply you with passive stat boosts when they’re not active. While they do make your life a little easier and are fun to keep around, they are not mandatory. Prices range from $4 to $8.

Experience-boosting potions are also sold for real money. They can be quite helpful when leveling additional characters after you’ve hit the max level of 60 with your main, but I don’t really think that they grant users any unfair advantages over non-paying players. Besides, due to the rather generous showering of log-in rewards, you’ll get a fair amount of those boosters and other paid items for free. If you still want that extra boost in your life, be prepared to shell out $1 for a 50%, two hour experience boost.

That’s not too bad. There are a couple of other convenience items, pets, and $5 mystery boxes that let you gamble away your real money for some unknown rewards. Curiosity got the better of me and I bought a bunch of these boxes, and while their contents are random, you generally do get your money’s worth in items. Still, savvy players might want to avoid this kind of gambling. All in all, I consider Marvel Heroes’ business model to be pretty fair. The game can be enjoyed without spending any cash at all, and most items available for purchase are fair priced. If you want to spend lots of money on in-game fluff, you can definitely do that, but the game is never forcing you. It’s also not the least bit intrusive about its cash shop, never pushing you to check it out except for a splash screen when you log into the game.

So what’s in store for Marvel Heroes 2015, what does the future bring? Well, for one there’s a rather unimaginative but sensible rebrand as Marvel Heroes 2016 coming soon. With that rebrand come a host of new features, such as a whole new story chapter with new locations, controller support, Steam achievements, and a bunch of visual upgrades to get the old art assets up to date. The Danger Room will be introduced as new game mode, offering a series of maps with random enemies and special victory conditions associated with them.

And then finally there will be leaderboards that work on a short-term basis, which means that everyone will be able to compete for a few hours, and at the end there will be rewards for the winners. I like the sound of that. Other than that, players can expect a generous helping of content updates, the likes of which they are already used to. New characters, new Team Ups, new costumes. The current roster of playable characters is also under constant review in order to be competitive with the new content, keeping the meta-game in constant flux.