Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has proved to be one of the funnest fighting games I have ever played.
The basic gameplay of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the same from the previous games by Capcom, with the significant difference being that now players get to select a three-person team rather than two, and with a roster of 56 characters the possibilities are endless. During the actual match, the combatants fight in 1-on-1 battles, but the tag team element allows the player to call their other characters in order to "Assist" by attacking the opponent's character, or swapping places with your fighter altogether. There's also Team Super combos, where your team unleashes incredibly powerful attacks that all combine to wail on some poor sap; air combos play a big role in the game as well, now those 30 or 40 hit combos you can pull off on the ground can be done airborne (just don't forget to have someone to use it on). I loved the overall depth of the roster in this game, as well as the -- what seems infinite -- possible matchups, and whether your a n00b or a pro in the 2D fighters world you should be able to find a team that fits your style (My personal team is Cyclops, Guile, Blackheart). The accessability of this game compared to other fighting games is pretty good, too; the super combos are a bit easier to input and overall the massive combos aren't as difficult to remember (it's all a matter of figuring out what can combo into what).
The graphics are about the same as the other games from the "Marvel vs." series, but the backgrounds have drastically changed. What were once sprite-based backdrops (like the characters) have been replaced by beautiful 3D backgrounds, with an impressive amount of detail and colour. The character sprites, however, looked dated on this new-fangled scenery; almost all of the returning characters from previous games are using the same sprites from those games, some of which came out as early as 1995 (this game released in 2000). By the time of release, Capcom had aldreay released Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike (then the pinnacle of graphical prowess in 2D fighting) a year before; my question is why didn't MvC2 get new sprites like what was seen in 3rd Strike, rather than ones based on the Street Fighter Alpha games? Usually, this doesn't affect the overall appeal of the game, but if you play your Dreamcast using a better connection than AV (like S-Video, or VGA which is what I use) you will notice the dated look of the sprites.
The voiceovers of each character and the sounds of every Hadouken, Optic Blast, and Web Swing sound excellent; I even recognized some of the X-Men's voices from that awesome cartoon from the '90's. Again, some of the voices (notably the Street Fighter characters) are taken from older games, but why mess with something that sounds good already? The music was a bit questionable, it was comprised of a lot of jazz-rock; which doesn't sound bad necessarily, but some of it can be really cheezy and it just seems really out of place in a fighting game. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure in the game though, as I can't seem to get some of these songs out of my head. Today, the game is in high demand, and is a bit on the "overpriced" side; the Dreamcast port (the best version available) goes for about $50 US on average, while the inferior PS2 and Xbox ports garner up to $20 US more. The PS2 port isn't all bad, and is what most people will go for (since so many people have a PS2), but if you do own a Dreamcast go online and find a copy. The Xbox version is the PS2 version, but it lacks online (Xbox game w/o online?! WTF?!) and there's some slowdown (a killer in any fighter) and lots of bugs that were overlooked; avoid the Xbox port if you can.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has proved to be one of the funnest fighting games I have ever played. While the game may look and sound a bit dated compared to other games from the era (SF3, Guilty Gear X, KoF '02), its limitless matchups and chaos factor can't be beat by any other game in the genre even seven years after its initial release. This game is a must have on the Dreamcast; even if you're a veteran 2D gamer or are completely new to the scene, this is a title that no one should miss out on for this console.