Good Game not as good as its predecessor tho!
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is the follow up to Marvel Ultimate Alliance (surprisingly) in which the story follows the more adult themed plot. With characters from the secret wars and civil war story involving X-men, Avengers and Fantastic 4 teams and other related heroes / villains as they struggle with the fight between responsibility and freedom of choice. As for gameplay, MUA2 has now introduced "fusion" attacks in which 2 characters combine their powers to create devastating and visually stunning attacks
The sequel has vastly improved but downsized or stripped some elements of the first that made it so interesting and varied
Story – 8/10
The story has vastly improved on the first story with it not having such a generic plot (which enabled the developers to showcase as much of the marvel universe as possible (and sticking to a tighter and more moral questioning story which is quite faithful to the books. However you may question why Capitan America and other heroes who are publicly known are anti –registration but this should really prompt you to get the books as Capitan America has changed a bit character-wise in recent years, so more cash for Marvel there for your research
Graphics /Camera/Sound 7.5/10
The Graphics has finally leaped from cute cartoon like figures and background to full HD colour and mood lighting with highly detailed backgrounds and models with the cut scenes looking particularly fluid and going well with the dark tone of the story, however some of the cut scenes has the voice and sounds out of sync with film such as an explosion sound before the actual explosion and some times the music and sound effects cut out on the menu screen. On the plus side more detail and effort has gone into making sure each character is distinctive and more up to date in terms and costumes and the scenery is has more impact so you feel like you are in the area you describe like in New York during the battle with Lucia Von Bardas where you can see a few famous landmarks.
The sound is very good and atmospheric with a slight national feel to it, well it's a patriotic plot, what can you expect, but sometimes the sound does cut out and you'll end up wandering through most of a level before anything kicks in. All the voice actors are good especially the guys from the Spiderman comic group however Thor sounds particularly geeky and cartoonish making him sound like he should be in the new Marvel Hero Squad game.
The camera has some shots which really good and showing you everything around and displaying lots of background as well but some shots are quite limiting so you can't see much ahead of you or behind you which can be frustrating as you need to turn your character back and the camera at the same time in case you miss any collectibles/ enemies/ boxes etc. Just make sure you don't get stuck behind a large object like a truck or helicopter as you won't see your character as you don't really feel you have much control over the camera.
Gameplay / Characters 6/10
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the previous game and X-men Legends; you punch, kick, throw and zap your way through each stage with ease and very few puzzles with the array of characters and missions.
The characters have not changed much since the predecessor with only a few people switched around but still a good cast. The powers have been stripped down with only 4 main powers which vary in degree of strength, the only real twist and saviour is the fusion power which has over 170 combinations which come in three styles clearing, targeted and guided which are visually stunning.
The developers mentioned that they wanted to balance the characters and gameplay but from this action RPG, you've got more action and less RPG with the character hero stats menu only have a few options to upgrade certain attributes and assign 3 boosts for the team whereas previous games could be done per person and change all traits / skills to your liking. Another downfall is the balance of characters even though there's a variety; the actual usefulness of some characters can be questioned with Captain America. Iron Man and Daredevil coming up as some of the weakest and Jean Grey, Songbird and Wolverine being the strongest. If you have read the comics you'd know that someone like Iron Man could easily take out Songbird but with the power chart unbalanced you could be opting for the singing harpy!
Also when playing the main game you will find the AI to be a bit temperamental, when controlling one player, the other team members will sometimes fight or just idly stand by while you get beaten to death. Only certain characters will willingly join in the fight but it's a matter of finding them or swapping characters now and again to ensure everyone is alive and kicking (pun intended)
Challenge /Replay Value 8/10
The actual game itself is not entirely long, you could possibly complete the main game within 10-15 hours on normal mode but once you get to Legendary mode it gets a bit tricky and you start to lose characters when you thought you wouldn't and the overall AI is quite challenging but once you learn the movements of your foes you'll be beyond to breeze through this game. The main story mode is well thought-out will have you coming back for more once you declare yourself to one side (pro or anti registration) and then take up the other alliance for your next game. The somewhat familiar conversations will determine which boost and attitudes you get depending on answers and the side missions for each character and the training missions are quite challenging with some training sessions involving you to use the correct people to do the job and the personalised missions will require you to do both stories to complete and game and collect all items and trophies.
With the recent DLC pack with extra characters and missions the replay value does go up again may even spur you to start the whole game again just so you can go through the game with them afresh.
Summary:
I highly recommend this fun and oddly addictive game despite feeling they've developed the graphics, fusion powers and story and left the RPG gameplay and camera elements behind, if you're a marvel fan and love the story for this you'll love it however recommend fans of action RPG genre and with the recent DLC pack you'll be hooked on this for a while.