The most dissappointed I've been by a sequel in years...
When I first began playing, my hopes were quite high. The visuals and presentation were better than its predecessors and I was thoroughly engaged by the combined Civil/ Secret War story arc. I was even willing to look past the almost complete stripping of addictive loot mechanics I had come to expect.
Also, despite the fact that the poor camera made the game extremely hard to follow, my friends and I were having fun smashing and bashing our way through the game. Unfortunately, a couple of hours in and the gameplay had become mind numbing. The same 2 or 3 enemy types are used over and over and the environments were lackluster and unvaried. Even the different characters played too similarly. Flight and teleportation don't feel like they matter anymore and action seems to fall solely into simple melee or ranged play styles.
Uninteresting power combinations get even more restricted as characters are shoehorned into roles based on their stances on the Registration Act. This is coupled with an overhyped fusion system and a shoddy implementation of bad dialog trees. Even the story begins to lose its luster as many favorite heroes become childish caricatures of themselves.
I've played a lot of button mashers in my 30 years of gaming and I can honestly say that Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 was one of the most tedious grinds to the finish line I've ever experienced. Still, the production values are good, and if your somewhat new to this genre, there might be enough action here to barely squeeze out a decent time.
6/10