Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is another game I have been excited about for some time. The rumors surrounding the story, the list of heroes you can use, and the voice acting.  Nothing more exciting than video games and comic books!

Ultimate Alliance 2 focuses on the events during the Marvel Civil War story arc. Solid writing is what made the first Alliance so great, and it’s continued beautifully here. The writers did a great job bringing to life the personalities of the characters with great banter and one-liners during battles. True to form, Iron Man was by far the cheesiest, laughing at his own very bad jokes - “What’s red and gold and pounds you senseless?”

UA2 brings in some B-list heroes to fight with the A-listers such as Captain America and Iron Man, and some D-list heroes that will have some people going, “Who?” like Speedball (as Penance). It’s a nice balance and introduces players to some of the lesser known heroes who have pretty interesting back-stories, some of which you learn about during conversations.

With a large cast of excellent voice actors - many of them old hands at voicing Marvel products, like Steve Blum, the voice of Wolverine - I highly doubt anyone will be disappointed with the portrayal of their favorite heroes. Keep an ear open for a wonderful cameo that had me giggling for several minutes (Hint: the Senator). They find a good balance between combat banter, which is of course meant to be a tad cheesy, and silent beatings - expect for Deadpool, but that’s to be expected.

In the three years since the first Ultimate Alliance, there have been great leaps in game graphics. M:UA 2 is pretty,  Arkham Asylum pretty. The level of detail (outside of the rendered FMVs) is the same from beginning to end, from cut scenes to combat, seamless and lovely. The mission briefing videos are beautiful and look like something SHIELD might have created, showing you the building, or parts of the map you are going to – all while your console is loading the next level in the background. It really does help to further the illusion of being a part of the game.

Since M:UA 2 does focus on Civil War, it means that you have to eventually choose a side. Do you side with Iron Man and SHIELD, or with Captain America and the White Star Guerillas? Overall, it doesn’t affect the game that much, sadly. During Act II, you still play the same maps with different bosses, and you lose three characters for a time. They were trying for two different experiences, but the execution wasn't perfect. At least you can’t say that one side is better than the other as the developers did a good job in keeping things balanced. I just might have been happier seeing a different map or two depending on the side you pick.

Each hero has four different powers – a major scale-back from the (four slots and eight powers of the previous title.) I loved Sue Storm in the first game, she was damn near untouchable, but the balance in the powers feels a tad off to me in this one.  I also miss the different costumes that had extra benefits; the first game had four unlockable costumes with earnable boosts on each one for every character. M:UA 2 has a cosmetic-only unlockable alternate costume for each character. Out of a cast of 20-something heroes, only one of them has a group heal, and he’s not someone most people will play because they know who he is. Poor Hulk is no longer as awesome as he was either; in the original game, he was the only character who could beat up enemies with an enemy. Now, Thing and Venom can do it - it’s no longer fun to yell “Hulk have dolly” at my husband, because he just does the same move with Thing.

One of the big selling points with M:UA 2 was “Fusion” powers. These are big “limit break” attacks you can charge up by kicking lots of butt. While that’s generally well and good, maybe I don’t want to see the same Fusion three billion times. You have more than 20 characters to choose from, and really only 10 combinations of Fusion Powers. To further narrow it down, they basically have only 3 effects: targeted damage, area effect, and guided rolling damage. That was a huge let-down, especially since it was marketed heavily as the 23-combinations-per-character “custom” Fusions. Sure its great to fling Wolverine at bosses, but when that’s what he does with over five partners, it stops being awesome.

The difficulty curve is nice and steady, scaling well from the button masher level to the expert gamer. The Casual setting is great for beginners, with a no-dying feature enabled so that novice players won’t suffer from too much frustration. I call this the “Hand Holding” setting, and happily let my four year old play to his heart’s content. With three other levels of difficulty, there’s a setting for everyone. Though I will recommend playing through it once on a lower setting, then starting again on a harder setting, because the hardest setting is pretty, well, hard. It’s called Legendary for a reason.

When playing co-op multiplayer and trying to hit those achievements, don't log out.  The game doesn’t save the progress of anyone but the first player. Granted that’s a step up from the first game, where it would randomly lock things already unlocked if another player doesn’t have them unlocked (and vice versa). I just would have liked to see a bit more love for other players on the team.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is a good solid game that shines above a lot of others. Sure it’s got some issues with the power balance and multiplayer. But if you are a fan of Marvel, and you enjoyed the first title, then you will definitely be impressed with the polish put into this one.