My life has taken on new mening.

I have almost zero tolerance for quippy Deadpool at this point, but I predict that I have *infinite* tolerance for quippy Elsa.

Well, Elsa's entirely different there. She's if I recall correctly, mostly deadpan snark. Deadpool is Looney Tunes plus bloodshed minus the charm.

Oh, and as for...



... they have been spotted on both merchandise and in screenshots (you can see one in particular in split second bits of the X-Men trailer for instance), but whether or not they're playable remains to be seen.

Whelp, this clenches it, I'll have to pick up a Switch at some point. Was already leaning that way with my kid starting to get more into video games and wanting the Pokemon games, so this is really all the excuse I need.

Now that their official website has been finalized, I have to say, I have been spending probably way too much time browsing and re-browsing that site. The design is fantastic and there are still a few more little snippets of information we get from there! I'm particularly pleased to see that we'll go up against Klaw and The Red Skull.

Played it a bit today. Our boy Scott Porter is the voice of Star Lord!

I'll be grabbing my copy this afternoon after work. I'm absurdly excited!

Car repairs mean I may not get it opening weekend - here's hoping that extended warranty pays off

Super pumped to see good reviews though! Also pumped at the leak that our roster is actually 36 characters at launch, with...



As unlockables. And we'll also be getting Cyclops and Colossus free in about a month, outside of the paid DLC. Good stuff!

Warranty to the rescue, so we got the game on Saturday evening and played basically all night and most of Sunday. My wife and I are into Mission #6 and so at the 45-50%ish mark I can make some comments.



Of course, what everyone probably wants to know is character reviews! So here's my thoughts on everyone I've logged any meaningful amount of time with. I'm going to rank them from worst to best, roughly.

- Star-lord: His attacks are slow and he's not mobile enough for my tastes. In general ranged folks without good knockback, mobility, close-quarters coverage, or CC feel like death sentences to me in this game. He does good damage but overall I've never wanted to go back once I unlocked more folks.

- Captain Marvel: Everyone swears by her but I was underwhelmed - her attacks are too erratic, "floaty", and hard to line up for my tastes/low skill level. They definitely emphasized that "higher, further, faster" approach to combat with her but in practice she spends a lot of time in my hands punching air because every tap of a button sends her flying in a new direction.

- Miles Morales: Just felt like a worse Peter. Sorry buddy!

- Black Widow: Mostly enjoyed her mobility, CC, and ability to mix it up at range or in CQ. But, she is awfully squishy.

- Wolverine: He's slow and like Carol hard to aim and control, but he does so much damage and has so much surviability that he was still okay to play.

- Hawkeye: A muuuch better ranged attacker than Star-lord, thanks to the spread on his attacks and the knockback + mobility on his heavy attack (which is an Explosive arrow performed with a backflip out of trouble). His specials are also silly-strong. I still think Ranged is suicide without more mobility or CC but Hawkeye was okay.

- Rocket and Groot: Now we're getting to folks I actually really enjoyed. I dug that the "quick attack" is a nice rapid fire ranged attack and the heavy has Groot whipping around and smashing a huge radius with knockback. Specials are underwhelming but the basics play extremely well and make for a solid, balanced hero.

- Captain America: His Defensive Shield is really hard for me to line up, but apparently when it works it is really overpowered so I plan to keep practicing. A running theme for me is I like it when a character's light + heavy attacks are more than just "light punch" and "heavy punch", so Cap's heavy and combo lights leading into a Shield Throw gives him great reach and knockback. His shield charge is also good at shredding stagger meters. If he was just a bit more mobile he'd be a top favorite for sure.

- Ms. Marvel: She has such absurd reach on her basic attacks that it turns most mook-fests into a meat grinder. It's pretty great. I also love how much stagger she drains with her Embiggen Bash. She's slow and easily pinned down, but a great attacker.

- Thor: Surprisingly fun. He's slow on the ground but flight helps a ton to avoid trouble. The two specials I had unlocked are both a little slow as well but deal extreme damage and stun targets with electricity. And as you've gleaned, I like more versatile attacks - and Thor's ability to chuck his hammer on heavy or combo gives him some nice unpredictability and knockback power.

- Ghost Rider: It's early yet, but he is so fun! All his attacks cover a huge radius and have a huge reach - he's like a more terrifying and more mobile Kamala.

- Nightcrawler: His teleport is so fun, and it makes for a great way to get into or out of trouble easily. Mobility is king to me, and Kurt really delivers. If his non-specials were a little spicier (they mostly just have a small teleport-dash attached to the end of a combo) or his level 15 and level 20 were a little more powerful/consistent, he'd probably be tops - I can't overstate how good his first and second specials are or how great his combination of high speed and teleportation is for maneuvering out of danger.

- Spider-man: My absolute favorite hero to play as so far. I adore how his light attack combo is a series of punches and kicks that can trigger into an airborne flip and web-spray attack - no CC on those webs, but it keeps him VERY safe as he sprays web bullets from above. His specials all bring a ton of CC to the yard as well, helping him lock down a map. And web-slinging avoids a lot of the bullet-hell death attacks bosses love to unleash.

My wife has tried a few more and would give her seal of approval to Venom, Elsa, and Scarlet Witch as her favorite characters so far. She really, really enjoyed Wasp too. She also tried Spider-Gwen, Gamora, and Daredevil and didn't dislike any of them, but also didn't want to keep playing them so make of that what you will .

Got it day one w/ season pass, played it, finished the campaign on Mighty. (Some tornadoes touched down nearby so I was cooped up all day Saturday anyway)

First impression is that it still isn't as deep as MUA1, but I definitely prefer it to MUA2. Still fun, just not quite as great as I was hoping. Don't like "combos" being reduced from 4 to only 1 per character or getting rid of grabs, but I will admit they did a great job making each character's combo/heavy feel more distinct from each other. Less variety for any given character, but maybe more between characters if that makes since.

Played mostly a New Avengers roster initially, but switched to X-men shortly after enough for a full team became available and stuck with them until the end.

Spider-man was probably the highlight of my early game. lots of mobility. Love that his heavy leads into aerial attacks, almost like having a second combo to play with (noticed Captain Marvel's heavy is the same, but haven't quite clicked with her yet)

Wolverine/Deadpool. These two just don't die. If you're having trouble with a particular level/boss/trial, put one or both of these two on your team.

Psylocke. Great fun. Lots of cool flashy abilities.

Nightcrawler was fun too. After playing him in MUA1 it was hard to get used to not being able to take "shortcuts" via teleport. But without as cool of abilities as Psylocke or as good of survivability as Wolverine/Deadpool he was the one I dropped when Storm became available.

Wolverine/Deadpool/Psylocke/Nightcrawler have a ton of team bonuses. Bonus for all X-men, bonus for all X-force, bonus for all "cutting edge", bonus for 3 Martial artists, bonus for 2 anti-heroes. Seemed almost excessive.

Storm really rounded out the team with some great range crowd control. She was fragile, but her crowd control was so worth it.

Any advice on Doctor Strange, Jruffing? I find it hard to believe leveling in Infinity Trials will overly help us unless we're leveling new folks. It just seems like he attacks so much and soaks so much punishment himself that we can't do much. For specifics, if you recall,

- Who did you use? I presume X-men since you'd have just unlocked them?

- Did you destroy the Orb/Turret things or leave them alone?

- Did you do any level grinding/resource farming first?

What's weird is everyone talks about Dr. Strange as the hard boss, and I don't know that he stuck out to me. Now now he kicked my ass. Strange doesn't even stick out in memory enough to have much in the way of boss specific advice for him.

-Was definitely rolling with Psylocke/Nightcrawler/Deadpool/Wolverine in Dark Dimension

-Only Destroyed the orb things if it was convenient. If I have an opening to go for Strange, I'm taking it. But if AOE attacks had me in the area anyway, then sure.

-I didn't really do any level grinding at any point. But I didn't too much character switching either. If you're switching up your team a lot you may have to.

I remember boss's in particular felt a lot easier once I put an ISO-8 for drawing enemy attacks on Wolverine. Helps give your more fragile heroes some breathing room. The damage reduction CPU's get coupled with the healing factor means he'll never die anyway while under computer control. Synergies that are either long range or really quick are great go-to's for depleting stagger meter.

Thanks JRuff! We cleared the good Doctor (and Loki) last night and cleared Dormammu this morning before I went to work. Doc was still a pain - he just does so much damage, so constantly, with no real gimmick to stun him and no relief from the stream of violence. Loki and Dorm were comparitively much easier - we facerolled Loki and only wiped once on Dorm.

Deadpool was also the savior and MVP - having Teleport + Regen + melting stagger with Katanarama + having lots of good synergy attacks with our current comp of Psylocke, Ghost Rider, and Elsa Bloodstone made him a super star. Thanks for the advice!

Having played a bit on vacation, I’m not as far in as some of you, but man I am having a blast! This game is pretty much exactly what I wanted out of a new MUA. It’s not the best thing ever, but it’s far more than good enough!