All right, right off the rip, I did not finish this game. It was honestly a slog to deal with the massive text boxes and interpersonal relationships just to progress the story. Firaxis does turn-based combat so well that I could almost forgive this, but it became so tedious and dull that I ended up skipping most of it, ultimately deciding that the combat wasn’t worth it and just watched a cut-scene movie. Let’s get into it.

You are a blank slate character, basically. You get to create your own character, but they are the child of Lilith and Lilith is back because of Hydra and they want to take over the world. Lilith seems to have her own motivations, but they fall somewhat flat near the end. It’s a basic superhero story premise and it’s not great, but that’s not what you’re here for. If you’re like me, you want to see a bunch of Marvel characters work together to defeat the bad guy. That is what you get for the most part but you also get a lot of life sim elements that do not blend very well with this type of game.

Gameplay is divided into two completely different genres. When you’re out on missions, it’s a turn-based tactical game. You play cards and use character powers, along with the environment, to dispatch your enemies. It’s a tried and true Firaxis game in this right. I genuinely enjoy the combat scenarios a lot. As you complete them you unlock higher difficulties with better rewards. Some of these challenges are pretty difficult and I enjoyed using my brain to figure out the best way to handle the given scenarios. The other half of the gameplay is a life simulator. Using the various currencies and rewards from the missions you unlock upgrades for fellow heroes as well as your base of operations. You can improve character abilities, and your synergy with those characters as well. While this sounds good on paper, I was overwhelmed with the amount of notifications and to-do lists in between main missions. This bombardment of tasks made the game feel like a chore in between the entertaining and brain stimulating combat missions. About halfway through my playtime, I ended up skipping all dialogue just to get to the missions. I love a good story with well developed characters and something to say, but there were so many instances of paragraphs of text and conversations that went on for over 5 minutes. Most of this is presented as optional, but missing out on some of these conversations can affect relationships with them, stifling their combat abilities. The two systems that this game uses for its gameplay do work well together in some instances but the over abundance of systems and check boxes bog down the entire experience.

Just so you know what you’re getting into if you want to give this game a try, here are a couple of the systems at play. To improve a character’s combat abilities you need to get more than one card for said ability. To obtain these cards, you need to take the character on missions with you and hope that you get the card, as a reward, that you want to upgrade. Upon mission completion, you can get a gamma core and/or an artifact from the Sanctum Santorum. These are basically loot chests that can give you the ability upgrades for the characters, and crafting materials to upgrade the Abbey. Taking them on missions can result in them getting injuries, if they are injured, you can still take them on missions, but their effectiveness will be reduced. When you’re at the Abbey (your home base) you can spend time with the characters to also upgrade their cards and abilities or even new ones. Some characters will even have many quests for you to do, like to change your hairstyle, to further their relationship with you. You can also train with characters at the training yard, giving them experience and possibly unlocking/upgrading abilities. You’re managing a combat team, relationships, and a base at the same time when you’re not fighting. It’s just way too much.

Well, I didn’t hate the game overall, I can’t recommend it to people who are fans of life simulators or those that are fans of turn based tactical combat. Most people aren’t fans of both genres and the combination of them does not mesh well. It feels like the elements at play in the Abbey are just there to make the game longer. I don’t think it needed it because of the different difficulty options and multitude of mission scenarios. The upgrade system relying on loot also makes me think this was supposed to be a live service game and I don’t particularly care for its implementation. The game has enough replayability that there was no need for the extensive systems and superfluous dialogue pervading the game. This game could be a Marvel fan’s favorite game, but there are better Marvel games out there, so this one falls short in that regard as well. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend it to anyone.