It is almost exactly like Marvel Ultimate Alliance with Diablo input(mouse for movement). It's completely cheesy like an 80's comic book movie, which in my opinion is good. We don't need any more media trying to make superheroes seem realistic right now.
As for RPS' John Walker article, I will just say that he is highly inconsistent in his reviews. In this particular one, I can only try to imagine why he lambasted a media build 5 months before release. Anyway, another reviewer felt the need to set the record straight with an opposing view in the comment section.
Hey John,
I write for a F2P focused site and while I found some of your arguments valid, overall your experience seemed to have been quite a negative one versus mine.
For one I find the departure from the typical fantasy setting most ARPG take quite refreshing. I often found myself comparing this to D3 and while D3 may not be considered the perfect example ARPG, it does give readers something to compare it to.
There are a lot of things it does right that give it charm including hero appropriate voice acted interactions between your current marvel hero and other heroes around him. The combat itself isn’t that bad and while I wished their were more powers per superhero, this is something that the developers stated they were adding in the next upcoming patch.
You don’t mention the fully voice acted motion comics at all which propel the story forward, a nice twist that incorporates the familiar comic book feel with added flair. While not all of these were done I did feel like it kept the players interested in the current story rather then simply focused on wherever they had to go in order to complete the current quest (I never ran into those kill quests you mention).
Additionally the game has small features that were nice additions such as the ability to swap between heroes on the fly without having to go back to a loading screen or play through the starting area again. You simply swapped them out and continued on. The costume crafting feature, which let you change your appearance to another costume style, was also a nice addition since it allowed you to embed stats into your costume. Effectively allowing you to have multiple costumes with different effects.
The stat options themselves were much more interesting then what is found in D3 in my opinion. I regularly got items that gave unique bonuses such as a chance to knock back on hit or additional stats if I fell under a certain percentage HP. Items giving powers was also nice since it let you gain an additional power without putting a point into it, effectively allowing you to try out the power early or just spend your points elsewhere for the time being.
The overworld was a nice addition in my eyes since it allowed you to take on world bosses instead of just zoning into one instance after another alone or with a party. The boss fights I will admit were hit and miss but some were very difficult and required full use of my heroes abilities and the help of others (when it came to the overworld bosses). It was clear to me though that some of the fights will be tweaked since when a boss fight was done well it was leaps and bounds more enjoyable then the barebone fights I encountered (notably Doctor Octopus) .
For a F2P game I feel as though Marvel Heroes gives or will give a solid ARPG experience to those wanting something a little different. It is rough around the edges but has a lot of charm and doesn’t make you feel like a second class citizen if you dot pony up any money since new heroes and costumes randomly drop while playing so you don’t have to pay for new ones if you don’t want to.
Just a second opinion from someone who works with just F2P.
-Spunkify
Personally, as the game is now I would rate it 6.5/10 but I suspect they will be improving it a little before launch. For a F2P Marvel Alliance ARPG game, I couldn't be much happier.