Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Special Edition)

The special edition means that you get a bonus DVD only. This is not the same as Xbox 360 gold edition which has all the DLC characters.

If you loved both the X-men Legends games, then stop reading and order this game right now. It improves on Legends in graphics, storyline, and management. My favorite change in the mechanics is the removal of potions. Instead of running around and breaking boxes by the dozens or spending your money on health/mana potions, defeating enemies now restores you. You may be thinking that this makes bosses impossible, but bosses will restore you if you do a certain amount of damage to them.I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I won't go into the story in too much depth. Dr. Doom is trying to amass great power so he can rule the world/universe. A neat feature of the game is that you can change the storyline, sort of. You see there are certain missions (and you won't really know which ones) that you can either succeed, fail, or have to make a choice on. After you've beaten the game, you'll be treated to how your actions affected the Marvel Universe. If you fail to save a computer for example, a virus wipes out all mutants. At another point you have to choose which X-man lives or dies (and they really do die). They're not all black or white either, in one good scenario Xavier still dies.My only character complaint is no more controllable Nightcrawler. I really liked him in the earlier games, but now you have Spider-man, Captain America, and the Invisible Woman to name a few. Speaking of the Invisible Woman, most times you have a choice of maybe two characters with similar powers, but she is quite unique. My favorite power is her shield ability. It blocks 100% of all projectiles attacks and is wide enough you can shelter your team behind you. Very cool!The biggest fighting change is like God of War, they've added some of those press-the-button-in-sequence battles where your characters perform cool looking moves they normally wouldn't so long as you keep pressing the right button. I'm generally not a big fan of those because you miss the action by paying more attention to what to press next, but this game did a pretty good job of not being obnoxious with it.The levels are well designed and fun to play. They're smaller and better laid out than Legends II. You face villains like Arcade (very cool boss fight against a giant robot), Manderin, and even Galactus himself. I never found any of the bosses overly cheap or really all that hard.If you have to find a certain number of figurines you can unlock Daredevil and Black Panther. Blade is available from a mini-game in Arcade's level. Otherwise, I think you just have to beat the game to get the other characters, Nick Fury, Ghostrider, and Dr. Strange. If you are really rabid about comic missions, you can unlock the Silver Surfer, but from what I've read the Surfer isn't all that great anyway. None of these are as impressive as Ironman from Legends II.

This is one of those rare games where everyone can play on the same screen and join in an epic adventure. If you like games like X-men Legends 1 or 2, Shrek 2, Hunter the reckoning, Fantastic 4 rise of the silver surfer, or Gauntlet, you'll enjoy this game. The cast of playable characters is quite impressive, the special moves are all different, the storyline is pretty good, the environment is colorful, and the controls respond quite well. This is a great game for 2-4 players who want to have an old-fashioned couch party. For the price of 3 dollars, you really can't go wrong.

Gift for a sibling

In all honesty here the game over all is beast but the ps2 version was kinda on the down graded gameplay graphics compared to when I played the 360 version

Marvel went all the way.The personalities depicted by the characters,heroes and villians fit like a glove.This makes it more memorable and enjoyable while playing.I beat this game by myself on all levels.If you are a Marvelhead or fan of movies,you should enjoy this.Diehard fans will absolutely delight in the banter between archfoes.Spiderman tells Mysterio "I see you still have a fishbowl for a helmet." Capt America and Winter soldier brings bitter memories,etc.You get the idea.The multiple ending storylines allows you to control the destiny of events in the Marvel universe.

This is an excellent game to play with a friend. Unexpected, epic, truly enjoyable. There is less freedom in building the characters than in previous marvel games, but this doesn't take away from the enjoyable game play and smooth character controls.

GREAT GAME FOR ALL MARVEL FANS. LOTS OF GAME PLAY ARES AND MULTIPLE CHARACTERS. LOTS OF CHOICES OF COSTUMES AND ABILITIES FOR THE CHARACTERS, LOTS OF GAME TIME.