MUA2 Xbox 360 - reviewed (as of finishing Wakanda mission)

[Teancum]

Okay - so after playing through the game quite a bit more, I feel like I can give it a bit more of a fair review.  For simplicity, I've separated these into good/bad lists.

The Good

• The engine - It's vastly improved from MUA1.  Whereas MUA1 on the 360 looked like it was using way too much of the lighting effect known as bloom (I actually preferred the last-gen versions of the game because there was so much), MUA2's updated engine really looks next-gen.  It has that 360/PS3 look to the game.  The Havok physics system also adds a lot to the game, particularly with things like the "Tornado" fusions.  In general effects look much better as well.
• The story - Critics didn't like the story, but I think it's a nice blend of twists and turns.  Sure, it's not the absolute best story in the world, but it's way more than enough to carry this game.
• SOME of the "Streamlining" - Some of the features that VV added to make gameplay easier I actually appreciated.  I liked on-the-fly character swapping, and the fact that it seemed like when you replaced a character they got the health that the old character had, so you couldn't switch out infinitely to stay alive.  There are other streamlining features I didn't like, but that's covered below.
• Gambit's powers - As much as I hate to admit it, VV nailed Gambit in a way X-Men Legends didn't.  He always fights with his staff, and he's got believable and cool moves.  Finally he has a card move that's useful (the "machine gun" card move), as staff move that feels right (the big sweeping move) and his move where he tosses cards in the air.  All of it felt right.  He's so spot-on that he rarely leaves my team.
• SOME of the character models - It's really hit and miss here, but characters like Nick Fury, Penance and Deadpool look amazing (more than those three look great, that's just an example)
• The environments - From Latveria to the Negative Zone prison, it all felt correct.  It felt much larger in scale than MUA1, and less like a dungeon crawler.  Kudos to the team for that.
• Unique bosses/NPCs - Given the story VV had a lot of room to bring in a lot more heroes and villains as NPCs and bosses.  They did an amazing job with that.
• Boss battles in general - These felt a lot more unique than MUA1.  Whether it's battling Yellowjacket, taking on a boss with hordes of minions around them, or taking on a "regenerated" boss (Negative Zone) each boss battle was pretty fulfilling.

The Bad

• Give me MORE characters, not less - I know a lot of people who don't use a few folks on their rosters.  If you're like me you only use 8 or 9 different characters.  So when they split me up for Pro/Anti reg (or when they locked me out both prior to everyone joining back up) I lost 2-3 of my favorites.  That wouldn't be a big deal, but the roster wasn't any bigger than MUA1's, so I was stuck with 6 or 7 characters I liked to play through these missions.  Not cool.  A bigger roster would have remedied this, and should have been a given.  The sequel should have had at least 3-5 more characters than the original right out of the box.  (see my next point)
• Missing DLC - This is Activision's fault, not VV's, but it's still a big thing.  If I had Juggernaut plus the 5 DLC characters, I probably wouldn't have had any issues (and I would have bought them).  But poor choices in relation to taking care of the consumer means no DLC for me.  If a Gold Edition ever comes out I'll probably get it, but I'm certainly not holding my breath
• The rest of the character models - I couldn't believe how ugly some of the sexy, iconic characters were.  Ms. Marvel was definitely a butterface, as was Invisible Woman in her second costume.  Gambit as Death (2nd costume) was a cool idea, but the model ended up with that "shiny" look on the skin, and just looked off somehow.  Most of the women had rubbery looking hair, or in the case of She-Hulk, incredibly low-res textures for her hair.  Spider-Woman has hugemungous hips.  Black Widows face is uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugly!!!!  I'm not sure if it was just this one particular modeler on the team that got all these characters wrong, but whatever the case they should be demoted to the guy who models things like crates and stuff.  Very disappointing.
• Voice acting (quality) - Thor anyone?  Yeah, whoever voices Thor should be fired from any and all voice over jobs.  And for that matter, take out whoever did Hercules too.  What was wrong with Thor's MUA1 voice?  I thought it was perfect.  Captain America doesn't sound very convincing either.  He sounds like a smooth talking DJ instead of the tough leader we see in MUA1.  Sure, the MUA1 voice was a little campy, but if you toned down the cheese factor a bit it would do much better than MUA2's voice.  Gambit's voice was okay most of the time, but there 1-2 times where he sounded mentally handicapped instead of cajun.  Why not use Chris Potter, who voiced him in the animated series?  That guy nailed him.  War Machine wasn't bad, but James Avery would have been much better for the part, as he voiced him in the Iron Man/Spidey cartoon (see here). Venom's voice was also off, but I didn't like him in MUA1 either.  I loooove Venom from Web of Shadows, they should have used something similar to that (see here).  Long story short they should have stuck with the voice actors that worked, but only really did that in the case of Deadpool and Wolverine.
• Two costumes??? - Again, don't take things away in a sequel, add to them (or at least match them).  I found that there were only 1-2 characters where I even like their alternate costumes.  A shame.  With even a total of three costumes (even if it had been DLC) I would have been able to look past this.  And what's with the HUD not changing with an alternate costume?  That's gay.
• Yay!  I beat a bos...... Aww crap, the game locked up AGAIN!!! - I've only played one other game as buggy as this one (Destroy All Humans!: Path of the Furon).  This is unacceptable.  My disc and 360 are in pristine condition, but the game has locked up at least three times, and I've had to start a mission over at least six times due to something not triggering (like a boss not appearing) and not being able to move on.  Spider-Man: Web of Shadows had a few bugs like this, but it never locked up on me.  That's just 100% unacceptable.
• The "streamlined" powers - Sure, most of the powers on each character were awesome, but one of the things about XML2/MUA1 was the fact that you could swap out active powers when you got bored of the ones you were using, or change powers up to make a character fit your style better.  There are characters I'll never use in MUA2 because none of their powers fit me.  I would have used them in MUA1 because I could have found a few powers I'd like to use.

Summary
MUA2 is a great game that could have been a lot more.  As nice as some of the new features are, I would have gladly traded them for more characters or costumes.  The feel and look of the game have improved vastly.  My three biggest complaints lie in the lack of features, hit-and-miss character models, and hit-and-miss voice acting.

6.9/10

[nshinnosuke]

well as much as I hate MUA2 due to the fact that it has less playable characters,shorter length,less costumes(not to mention that most of the alternate costumes are infamous and ugly),less powers and no RPG elements, I'd still say that MUA2 is generally better than its prequel.
Why? the game has changed so much especially with the graphics and environment, the levels are very well designed especially the early levels of the game and they reminds me of XML1 which feels a bit like a platformer whereas since XML2 onwards the game them feels like a boring dungeon crawler,it's like you're visiting the same flat caves and factories again and again...
in the previous games you only face generic objects again and again to be thrown and destroyed, but here there are a lot of varieties (even though none of them can be wielded as a melee weapon unlike in MUA1),some of them are really fun to play with, for example Jean's Phoenix Fury will demolecularize and lift objects and one of Storm's powers can clear the way.
The powers are far more interesting to use despite the limited number (except a few characters who has been turned into absolute crap by VV,I'm pointing at Mr Fantastic,Venom and Daredevil...they were some of the most fun characters in MUA1 but now they're the complete opposite...Cap and Human Torch remain almost unchanged) and they evolve at higher level like XML1's powers.
Combat is much better than MUA1 where you can't chain from a 3hit move into powers. Now the chain move feature from XML games is back.The combat from XML2 to MUA1 was a stepback,replacing strong attacks with a chargeable knockback move is never a good idea
The basic fighting moves are also a lot better, where it was the weakest point of MUA1. Now some characters such as Gambit and Deadpool really use their weapons during attacks, who would want a basic sword slash move and staff assault as powers?
I'd give the game a 8.5...If I had the DLC and there is a gold edition with more DLC (why the heck is the X-Men without their leader in the next-gen versions?) and additional maps, I'd rate it higher than 9...still hoping for them to bring the DLC back

[LX - Rampage]

A comment to The bad Nr.6: I never ever faced such problem, with my game, even though I played it through a couple of times.

[Teancum]

A comment to The bad Nr.6: I never ever faced such problem, with my game, even though I played it through a couple of times.

Oh they exist.  A quick search of GameFaqs, GameSpot or even HeroHQ's forums will tell you that.

[MarvelFan12345]

I think your review was quite fair and covers the main points of the game.

[ragincajun]

One thing that I found I liked about it over MUA1 was the shorter story.  The MUA1 story was so long that at times it was possible to lose focus of where the larger story was going, and at one point, I even got bored of the game and had to walk away for a couple of weeks.  The shorter story in MUA2 kept me hooked throughout and was never too convoluted for its own good.  And it was based on one of the most iconic Marvel events of the last decade, which was definetly a plus.

[LarsAlexandersson]

Add the other goods:
Hawkeye (MUA1) & Psylocke (MUA2) or should we said Both Console Exclusive and DLC. Both characters always appears in both as:
A. First character as console exclusive
B. Brought as DLC: Hawkeye got an updates better than his Wii (Modded)/PSP & Psylocke still not sure about her.
The worst of the bad is:
#1:  What's the X-Men gonna do without their Leader (Cyclops) - MUA2's VV version. They should brought the characters from the other console as Psylocke & Hawkeye does - Both MUA Series.
#2: This is not my lucky day  . Next time we should spend our wallet & buy it (DLC) already before we bought the CD & before anything happen as MUA Series does.

I have making an idea on herohq forums for MUA2 Gold Edition. Chars including:
6 pre-DLC w/ new 4 who was previously exclusive on a certain console liked Psylocke does: Blade,Cyclops,Sentry,She-Hulk

[Jeanfan321]

I give like a 7.0 most of the costumes were just stupid 2 me like spiderman"s or just lame yeah and wat the hell is wrong with thors voice my god. And plus I thought there were all types of fusions yh the fusions look really good and cool but u see the same stuff over like howcome all da strong poeple gotta rip a piece of groud of the floor or throw wolverine? Plus sum fusions didn't make sense howcome when invisible woman does a clearing fusions she can fly but yet when u use her she can't nd for magneto how can he make a tornadoe?? I understand jean and storm but magneto?? That's dumb

[LX - Rampage]

Oh they exist.  A quick search of GameFaqs, GameSpot or even HeroHQ's forums will tell you that.

Than I'm a lucky guy Or maybe the European version doesn't have this or something.

[Teancum]

Okay, so I finished the game (Anti-Reg) and I have to say my initial review stands.  I still had fun with the game though, and despite what critics thought I liked the finale and final boss battle.  Still, without the DLC I doubt I'll play through it again to do the Pro-Reg side.

[Jeanfan321]

Okay, so I finished the game (Anti-Reg) and I have to say my initial review stands.  I still had fun with the game though, and despite what critics thought I liked the finale and final boss battle.  Still, without the DLC I doubt I'll play through it again to do the Pro-Reg side.

which side wuz harder pro or anti? Pro looks hard just cause u go against cage iron fist and cap america

[Teancum]

I haven't played as the Pro-Reg, but Anti was pretty hard, you go up against War Machine and a couple'a other heavy hitters.

[Jeanfan321]

Who wuz mostly on ur team

[Teancum]

Gambit & Deadpool -- everyone else I switched up, except for Penance and Songbird, which I never used.

[Jeanfan321]

you should try songbird her Decibel Barrage is a boss killer and sonic scream if your gonna play through pro she's really good and saves u lots of time when you dont have health tokens but she does die quickly like most of the girls