My buddy got some time away from his wife & kids today, so he headed to the local nerd haven & purchased this. At first glance, you'll swear it's a X-Men : Legends clone. To some extent, you're right. The graphics engine looks extremely similar, the theme of the game is the same, & the cutscene animation is virtually identical. The control interface is much the same as well. Jump, big hit, quick hit, throwing, blocking, combos, etc. They also use the same control interface to activate your special powers. The character interface appears to be a devolved version as well. The map & levels are all also extremely similar. By now, you've probably figured out that "some" is "incredibly, virtually indistinguishable fucking large."
This is to X-Men Legends what Knights of the Old Republic II was to the original. There is some vague attempt at in-game exploration w\ a half-assed "boost combination" that lets you collect boost spheres. Boosts come in numerous flavours (health boost, energy boost, etc.) & can only be used on your abilities to enhance them. You can combine three boosts of any one type to get a chance at a more powerful single boost. These fuckers appear permanent & once removed from an ability, they disappear. When we were playing thru it, we found no health potions or energy potions, but the designers compensated for this in a ballsy manner. Since this is seven fucking superheroes, they regenerate their health & energy incredibly quickly. Ten seconds of standing still is more than enough to go from near dead & drained to full strength.
This game is incredibly attack-happy. By that, I mean that there is virtually no point in not button-mashing your combos. Blocking is next to worthless. You can die QUICK. If you're not extremely careful, two average enemies flanking you usually means death, even on medium. Your foes seem to consist mainly of robots & a shitload of DC villains that are all magically knocked out within an inch of their life, never once dying.
Which brings me to another point. Death in this game happens frequently & has no penalty, save for the time it takes for your ally to get from where you are to the nearest checkpoint & the experience lost on the journey in between. If you both die, you both start at the last checkpoint.
The learning curve on a few characters is steep as hell. & some seem unbalanced. Superman & Green Lantern, in particular.
The worst bit is that you usually don't get to choose your character. It just gets selected for you as each level plays out. There are certain opportunities where you can pick who you want. In those cases, the selection of superheroes is larger, provided you've found enough shit to unlock the extra dudes (again, usually not available).
This sucker seems rather ho-hum & doesn't bring anything new or interesting to the table.