TL;DR You should play LEGO Marvel Super Heroes instead. I enjoyed this game as a (forgiving) Marvel nut, but I would not recommend it to the average consumer.

When LEGO Marvel's Avengers was first announced I got very excited. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes was by far my favorite LEGO game, and I've always been a huge MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) nerd. So when I heard a new LEGO game was being developed based specifically on the MCU and the Avengers movies, I was ecstatic. However, when I finally got my hands on the game, I was... rather disappointed.

The story mode is a pain to get through. While the first game had a fun and entertaining story, this game retold the Avengers films badly. They used audio clips from the actual films, and created cutscenes around them that just... didn’t work. Throughout the actual gameplay, depending on who you played as, you got to hear a mixture of badly-implemented audio lines from the films, and newly-recorded lines for the game. The game would've been much better if they'd just recorded new audio for all of the characters, even if it meant recasting most of the characters who appeared in the films.

To the game's credit, six actors from the films reprised their roles and recorded new audio for the game, and they were all fantastic. Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson) and Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) were the largest contributors, but you also got to experience a fair number of Free Play side quests from Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter and Ashley Johnson as Waitress Beth. Additionally, Ming-Na Wen narrated the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. DLC level as Melinda May, and Michael Peña narrated the Ant-Man DLC level as Luis. Hearing them all reprise their roles was an amazing treat.

Now, let's talk about what made the game worth playing for me: Free Play. That's always the best part of any LEGO game. However, you need to play through the entire story mode to get to most of the Free Play features (and if you don't poke around menus too much you might not even realize how to get to Free Play at all before completing the story mode). And playing through the story mode is tedious. The fact that you basically need to beat the entire campaign before you can really start having fun is why I don't recommend this game to the average consumer.

Free Play itself is a blast. As a major MCU nut I really appreciated a lot of the characters they included in the game just so that major fans would notice. The day I unlocked Lorelei I was overjoyed. They remembered Lorelei! I was so happy. I also loved the inclusion of the MCU lineup of the Defenders, although I'm pretty sure whoever wrote and directed Jewel's dialogue clearly never read Alias or watched Jessica Jones. That was about the farthest you could possibly get from any version of Jessica's personality.

Playing through levels and being able to switch between awesome characters at will has always been a major draw for Lego games. In recent years they’ve implemented overworld hubs as well, which is one of my favorite parts of the games. However, in this game you don't just get to explore Manhattan like you did in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes; you also get to explore seven other smaller hubs, including locations like Asgard and Tony Stark's estate at Malibu. Exploring them to find all of the secrets and unlockables is a blast.

That's something that's very interesting about the game: The inconsistency of quality. Some parts of development, such as the art department responsible for creating the environments in the game, completely outdid themselves in creating amazing and beautiful levels and hubs to play through. You can also tell a lot of work was put into the fight animation, as a lot of it is really cool. But sometimes you’re required to watch through an entire automated battle while mashing whatever button is on the screen, and this is especially tedious when you're in Free Play and just wish the story elements would go away.

Yes, some parts of the game, such as the environments, were impeccably well-made; but on the other hand, the game is a complete mess. Sometimes activating panels just doesn't work. Sometimes your map says you can collect something that's already been collected. Sometimes a vehicle will fall off a level in a way so that it never spawns on stable ground again unless you restart the level. Sometimes you can meet the requirements of an achievement, but it won't unlock because you exited a level the wrong way, and you might need to create a whole new save file to try and get it again. This game needed a much bigger QA team, far more than any other LEGO game has before it.

The hub side-quests are inconsistent as well. Sometimes a lot of work was clearly put into them. Others were just weird and sloppy. It really is strange how often this game flip-flops from fantastic to downright annoying. This can be said for some of the in-level puzzles as well.

Speaking of which, DLC. I'm not going to rage here about how the Season Pass doesn't include all of the DLC that it should, but... it really doesn't. The DLC levels themselves are fun, and I love the additional characters that come with them. However, that fact that we're given all of the characters from a DLC pack right off the bat is just sad. The best part of having so many playable characters in these games is the journey it takes to unlock them. Having all of the characters from a DLC pack available before you even play the level makes the whole experience… kind of lackluster.

However, I do briefly want to talk about how happy I am that they included an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. level pack. To have a LEGO game based on the MCU and not at least include a sizeable slew of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters would have been terrible missed opportunity. My only complaint with the DLC is that Skye's in-game character is named as her (spoilery) real name, when the level takes place at the end of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2, when she still went by the name Skye. For how much detail they attend to, I felt it a shame that they forwent it for marketing purposes.

As a huge Marvel and MCU fan, the experience was worth it to me. Playing through the game in Free Play with a huge cast of Marvel characters both from the films and the comics is, frankly, a total blast. But in order to unlock most of that experience, you first need to play through a tedious and poorly-made story mode, that I would say makes the game not worth it to the average consumer. If you truly want to enjoy yourself with a beautiful marriage of everything that’s good about Marvel and LEGOs, I highly recommend you check out LEGO Marvel Super Heroes instead.

Honestly, this game needs multiplayer online so everyone could play. But again, the game is alright.

Not worth it. Should have been lego marvel 2 not based off of movies

POSTED: February 1, 2016
UPDATED: June 25, 2016

Lego Marvel's Avengers is a Lego action-adventure video game developed by TT Games and published by Warner Brothers, releasing on the PS4, PS3, PS Vita, 3DS, Wii U, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and for PC, releasing on Steam in January 2016.

After 100% completing the game, I'm able to base my review on literally everything the game has to offer, besides most of the new DLC.

The game's story takes place through various scenes in 6 of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies, such as; The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the exception of future DLC that includes Ant-Man and possibly others. They currently have a deal with Sony for a time exclusive DLC featuring an Ant-Man story/characters and Civil War characters, which will release in a few months for all other platforms.

First thing's first, is this better than Lego Marvel Superheroes?

In my opinion, yes and no.

Based on the roster, I liked Superheroes better because it had all of my favorite characters and the more iconic characters all in one. So don't go into this expecting to see Deadpool, The Fantastic Four, or the X-Men, as this game focuses soley on the Avengers MCU and comic universe. If Marvel doesn't own the sole rights to put them in a movie, they won't be in this game. But they still have a great roster of over 190 different characters.

Gameplay wise, it is much better. Combat seems more fluid. There are now combat specials where you use your second character to take down enemies. They added super jumps to certain characters. Speedsters are really fun to play as. Quicksilver is easily one of my favorites to play as, with their new mechanics. The voice acting for most of the main cast is ripped straight from the movies to give it an authentic feeling. For the most part, it sounds good, but there are parts where it just doesn't sound right. The graphics actually look much better, in my opinion. All returning characters have been completely revamped with new movesets and animations. Tony Stark and his Iron suits also have a neat animation when switching characters, that makes it seem like you're inside his helmet, like in the movies. Unlike Marvel Superheroes, there are now several different hub areas you can explore. They include Tony Stark's beach house in Malibu, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, South Africa, Hawkeye's farm, Slovenia, Asgard, and the return of Manhattan.

I did run into a few bugs here and there that caused me to restart a level or two, but nothing game breaking. A few freezes and stutters here and there, especially when flying or jumping, but otherwise, smooth 60 FPS on high settings.

I was able to completely beat the game in about 30 hours. That includes collecting all the gold/red bricks, vehicles/characters, Stan's in peril, and minikits.

Overall, it's a great game for any Marvel fan. I grew up playing the Lego series, and I still enjoy them today at 21. If you're a fan of the movies, you'll definitely be a fan of this game, as TT has yet to disappoint. The retail price is $40 at the time of this review, but with all Lego games, they'll likely drop down to $7.50 during a sale within the next year. If you can't wait, I was able to pick it up for about $10 from a third-party key seller website whose logo is a penguin. *hint hint*

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Lego Marvel Avengers is the second Lego Marvel game in the series, developed by TT Games and published by Warner Brothers, releasing on PS4, PS3, PS Vita, 3DS, Wii U, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and of course, Steam in January 2016.

As with all Lego games, you are going to get stellar gameplay. Run around whacking enemies using your super heroes special power, be it Hulk’s strength or Captain America’s shield, you will get to play as your favourite heroes in style here. I am about three levels into the game thus far and have had a good range of different puzzles and action to take part in. Your inner Lego builder will absolutely love smashing all of the scenery and objects to get that magic 100% brick mark on every level too.

I am playing the game on 4k and the game looks exactly the same as the rest of the series. You can drop it down to lower resolutions but you will lose the crispness of the models and textures. As with the rest of the series, all of the animations are absolutely flawless. Unlike the previous Marvel game in the series, Marven Avengers uses original voice acting that is pulled straight from the six films this game is based off. There are also a couple of lines from a few characters that have been specially recorded just for the purpose of this game.

The story of the game is based off The Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron, Captain America, Iron Man 3, Thor: Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Meaning you are going to get an absolutely stunning plot. I am like a little kid again following this story as I haven’t seen a few of the films; I am looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

Don’t expect to get a massive challenge in this game, dying doesn’t really come with any penalty, and the puzzles can normally be figured out pretty quickly. That doesn’t take away any of the fun though, you will find yourself spending hours just running around in awe at the structures and objects in this game that are made out of Legos! Level design is always the Lego games stronger points, with sooooo many collectibles, and hundreds of side missions to feast on.

There is also a lot of replay ability in this game, you will need to go back and replay levels if you want to unlock everything, as some parts of the stage will require a certain hero which you may not have unlocked yet. This is one of my favourite things to do once I finish the main story as you get to replay old content while still being rewarded.

As said above, I am running on 4k with the texture quality set to high and I am getting a silky smooth 60 fps. I have suffered from one freeze in game play that lasted about five seconds, not sure what will have caused this so I am going to assume it is a one off. The game plays perfectly with a game pad and I would recommend you do to. The ease of a second player dropping in and out of gameplay is again a major strong point making couch co-op relevant.

Even though I am only about an hour and a half into this game, I can easily highly recommend Lego: Marvel Avengers as a brilliant game. I love the Lego series, and this game is going to probably be one of its most popular releases. The game’s retail price on Steam is £24,99, I would say that is a fair price, but you can find it a lot cheaper elsewhere and Lego games do go on sale fairly regularly, so you may want to bear that in mind.

Tom's Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

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Today on I Can't Believe I'm An Adult and Paid $40 For This Game: Lego Marvel's Avengers.

First off, it's a Lego game. If you don't like running around, smashing everything in sight, janky controls poorly ported from consoles, and inexplicable chickens, this changes very little in the formula. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it and all that.

Second, it's improved. (Graphically.) If you played Lego Marvel Superheroes, almost all of the characters that made the jump to this one have been made better in one way or another, even if it's just graphically. Thor, perhaps, was one of the most fun to play with, now that Mjolnir stays electrified and easily deflects projectiles heading your way. They also made up for Hawkeye's relative uselessness in the MCU (I love you, Clint, but it's true) by giving him several more block types to interact with than the previous game. The graphics are actually very nice and I can still run it maxed out on my definitely-not-a-gaming-computer. That's always a nice feeling.

Third: open world. Grand Theft LEGO never fails to amuse me, but I'm easily amused and if you give me the opportunity to have the Hulk steal a car and drive it around New York City until it explodes, I'm going to take it. They took what was already the best part of the previous game and made it even better, IMO, and I've barely had a chance to play it. (UPDATE 2/2: Make sure you check out some of the other hubs besides Manhattan for more content -- also Coulson doesn't bug you about some guy stealing a purse every two minutes, which is nice.)

Four: the heroes. While Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four are notably missing from the roster (blame FOX), this gave Marvel the chance to pull out some of its lesser-known roster of heroes. I'm not sleeping until I unlock Kamala Khan, because I'm just so excited there is a video game with Kamala Khan in it. Also, the Young Avengers will always hold a place in my heart for being the book that got me into comics to begin with, so I'm pretty excited about them, too. (I'm guessing the game will not explain how Scarlet Witch, in her mid-twenties, has teenage twin sons also running around fighting crime?)

This isn't to say it's not without its flaws, because it has lots of those, too. Maybe I'm romanticising it because of the content that it's based on, maybe I'm biased, maybe I should just sleep and replay it in the morning when I haven't had coffee yet and see how frustrated a children's game can make me.

There is no original story in this game unless you decide to play out your own in the open world. If you've seen the movies, you've seen the plot for this game. While it draws mostly from the two Avengers movies, there are sequences from many of the solo films as well. On the bright side, the fact that this is a Lego game means no one dies, so Agent Coulson and Quicksilver are fine, on vacation in Tahiti. It's a magical place. They also made the Bruce/Natasha relationship in Age of Ultron make a little bit of sense, which is a miraculous achievement I didn't think was possible. So props there.

Because the game uses the original audio from the movies, things feel... off. Some lines are delivered too seriously for any Lego game, others are taken out of context to be used as chatter while you play, and it all sounds very quiet at times. For some inexplicable reason, they had a different voice actor record new dialogue for Bucky Barnes in the Captain America: First Avenger level, who sounds more like the original kid Bucky from the 1940s than the soldier portrayed in the movies. ("I'm with you 'til the end of the line!" he says enthusiastically! For some reason I have taken offense to this and I'm not entirely sure why.)

That being said, Hayley Atwell, Clark Gregg, and Cobie Smulders all recorded additional dialogue for their characters (Agents Carter, Coulson, and Hill respectively), and when delivered well (which it not always is), are amusing and make this game feel like it's supposed to be -- a Lego game in the MCU.

You're thrown into the game's opening sequence with absolutely no instruction as to how to play. Fortunately, if you've played any Lego game on the PC in the past, absolutely nothing has changed. Unfortunately, if you've played any Lego game on the PC in the past, absolutely nothing has changed. The controls suck. They always will suck. This time, they just suck and you're given very little information on how to use them. There are puzzle sections I spent ten minutes on because things were just not clear.

There are bugs -- I can't get the Steam Overlay to work, and sometimes the characters just won't do what you want them to (Tony, you're making Clint ashamed by how poorly you're aming your laser beam. Just hit the gold bricks, that's your only job).

So far, it's a cute game. It's a Lego game. It's a Marvel game. And it's fun. I can't really complain about that. Is it worth $40? Not really, but yet again, it's not money I regret spending (yet).

UPDATE (2/2/2016): I've finished Story Mode, and I have to say, I'm more underwhelmed than I was when I started out. While it's not necessarily enough for me to give it a not recommended rating, I'd definitely say that it's subpar as far as Lego game and pales in comparison next to the previous Marvel game. It's still fun though. Stupidly so. And it's not like people play Lego games for the excellent, original stories. So, yeah. Wait until this one goes on sale. But it's still fun, and it still has Kamala Khan, and that's good enough for me.

Let me just put it this way:

This and LEGO(R) MARVEL Superheroes are two equal and opposite sides of the same coin.

One is open city play Manhattan. One is open PLANET play Earth, plus a piece of the Nine Realms thrown in for fun.

One is utterly Original Story, with all the Classic Characters LEGO-ified from the Fantastic Four to Deadpool, the other is Carbon-Copy of the Cinematic Universe.

It Includes as much of the Netflix and ABC shows as possible while neglecting some obvious things from the previous game including the lack of return of even Deadpool Red Bricks, which is super obviously due to this game being prepared before everything was finalized for MARVEL to be allowed to make Deadpool and get Spider-Man into Civil War. Yes, this game is a MARVEL game with no Spider-Man, but with a team of 'Defenders' that includes neither Namor, Hulk, nor Doctor Strange.

Does that make it bad? NO! This to me makes one game simply Timeless, and one simply a Period Piece. A Historical Artifact. The first game took place in a strange Tesseract-Aether created Alternate Amalgam Universe, the LEGO Universe. This is the reverse-engineer process, A Basic LEGO game, MARVEL-Cinematic Universe-ified.

There are Three Kinds of People:

Those who love love love what Game 1 is doing and hate what Game 2 is doing;
Those who love love love what Game 2 is doing to get to the point and didn't stop as much to smell the roses for Game 1 (Game 1 lacked Infinity Stones or Eternity, come on!)

And Those who......having seen what Game 1 and Game 2 look like......strongly believe that Game 3, which is so, totally coming, is going to be the all-time-record Best MARVEL game in the History Of Ever.

LEGO MARVEL: Infinity War is going to have Spider-Man. It's going to have Deadpool. It's going to have Thanos and the Infinity Gems. It's going to have at the very least the Cinematic Universe's take on the Cosmic Powers that Be. It's going to not be so gummed up by a zillion X-Men-verse characters, and lack of Magneto is going to be a sad thing, but we will have space for a zillion other characters that we wouldn't have got that have their own charm, and we will have who knows what else. We can even strongly hope that by the time it's time for LEGO MARVEL 3, MARVEL will at least be able to negotiate for the use of Fantastic Four characters for the game, whatever happens film-wise. Which will be great and awesome.

I have had some glitch issues and it took me a while to fix them.
I wasn't able to get the DLC the same day I got the game, but as soon as I could, I did.
It's LEGO. And it's MARVEL.

If you have played basically any games at all, there is something in this game for you, and while you might be reluctant to pay full price for it, you know you wish you had more money to justify impulse buying it even if you have doubts. Of course you will miss Spider-Man. But you will love flying around the Planet landing on the Hub Worlds.

As with many games of this nature, the Secrets and Extras are not only harder than you would expect after a slew of easy ones, but sometimes your own controls get in the way and make it seem physically impossible to ever get something.
Be honest. You knew what you were getting into. You are HOPING for that experience, so you can say, I got THAT character-whose-name-I-don't-know-and-doesn't-appear-in-anything-I've-ever-seen-ever-and-even-my-dad-doesn't-know-this-insane-pointless-obscure-character.
You know that character? The one with ZERO good stories about them? Well now they HAVE a Story about them. The Story of YOU getting their Character Token in LEGO MARVEL's Avengers.

Captain America (Sam Wilson) Falcon can partner with Captain America (Civilian) Steve Rogers who is just in a Jacket and Shield, to explore Washington DC's Mall together, and just running side by side each other gets an Achievement. Know what it's called?

ON YOUR LEFT.

You do realize that right there is worth the price of admission, yes?
Also, there's like, a whole game to play, and stuff, besides the zillion ''OMG SQUEEE!" moments like that.
Does Arnim Zola (Classic) look stupid and not fit this game at all? Yes, absolutely.
Is that a problem worth complaining about? Not when finding him is one of the hardest things you'll do. He's not hard to reach, but he's HIDDEN. Really Well. Very Secret. Much Stealth. And his Hideout is one of the best parts of the game.

"When you put 6 hours into a game the day you got it, you know it's good"

Ok, I never expected this to be the top review for this game on steam!
Thanks to everyone who voted this as helpful
Now I will write an actual review

Lego Avengers is what I would call a "spiritual succesor" to Lego Marvel Superheroes, which is the best Lego game of all time
So how does this game compare?

The best parts of Lego Marvel return such as the awesome Open World (some of) your favorite Marvel characters and great humor.

So I'll start out with the open world

The huge open world New York from Lego Marvel returns, and it's almost exactly the same as in Lego Marvel. The only difference is that some of the landmarks like the Baxter Building Daily Bugle and the X-Mansion are gone. But the world is still fun to explore with tons of side missions. They also added random crimes, people will be robbed and cars will be stolen, but that's it. I really wish they expanded this feature, like stopping a large scale bank robbery or a stopping a big fight between the criminals and the cops, the current crimes tend to get old. There are also several other hub worlds, but all the other one's are small. Espicially Washington D.C, I wish instead of having a ton of tiny one's that they would have just put in the city that AAOU takes place in and have be the same size as New York.

Now I'll talk about the characters

Since they're using the MCU for this game we only get characters that appear in the MCU, meaning no X-Men Spider-Man Fantastic Four or Deadpool. Yet this still has more characters than the last game, and a lot of them are just filler, there's a million "Agent" characters and just civilians as characters. But I do like what they did with some of the characters in this game. In Lego Marvel Hulk was just ok, he could run around and punch cars, that was about it. In this game Hulk has an awesome super jump and can climb on buildings, Quicksilver is also fun because he can run up buildings. I would also like to mention that the character creator has improved.

Now I'll talk about the story

I actually really liked the story in Lego Marvel, the voice actors were great and it was funny, Lego Avengers' story is based off of movies from the MCU, while there's nothing wrong with this it's just not as funny as Lego Marvel, don't get me wrong, this game is funny, I actually laughed at several of the jokes, and they also use lines from the movies in different ways, overall the story is great.

Overall I give it a 8/10, a must have for fans of the MCU or Marvel or Lego Games in general

First things first, there’s nothing new in terms of the main storyline for this game. You’ll be replaying the same events that happened in the cinematic universe, specifically: The Avenger’s, Avenger’s: Age of Ultron, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But ofcourse, you’ll be doing this the LEGO way. The main story could be finished in around five to seven hours atleast. It still follows the same formula used in any LEGO titles before. You'll be given different simple puzzles to solve and sometimes requires a specific character to do so. Along with those puzzles there would be enemies trying to hinder you from doing your task.

• Huge Selection Of Characters – With over 200 Marvel characters to unlock, through story missions or doing tasks in the open world, I’m sure you’ll never get enough of it. Most hardcore fans would easily recognize most characters, but for those neutral players, this would be a great chance to know the names of some characters.
  
• Various Open-World Hubs – You get seven different areas that you can roam, usually after you’ve finish the main storyline. You get the chance to see Manhattan, Asgard, Sokovia, Washington D.C., Barton’s Farm, S.H.I.E.L.D. Base and Malibu. The areas are large enough to serve as your playground and unlock characters or vehicles.
  
• Combat Animations – Personally, I think this is by far the best animation for combat that LEGO has introduced. Even though the pace was slower, you can certainly see the detail of each attack your character does. And as an addition, there is an action button that when triggered, will execute a nicely animated combo which can also be done together with your partner to deal damage to the enemies around you.
  
• Replay Value – After finishing the main storyline, I was surprised to load my save game and see that I was still below 30% in completion rate. And that number says a lot.

• Terrible Plot – Yes, I’ve made it clear that there isn’t a new storyline, but their method of showcasing different movie events is just awful. Instead of being interesting, this would likely confuse anyone who haven’t watched the movies recently.
  
• Rip Off Dialogues – If you have watched the movies, you’ll notice that the voices used in the main storyline was actually ripped right from it. This results to a poor quality of the overall sounds. And it is just a plain lazy thing to do.
  
• Mini Map – There wasn’t any in the first place. But instead, you get a radar showing dots in different colors that could indicate an unlockable, a Gold LEGO, or a spawn point. And you’ll never know which unlockable it was until you get near it or complete the task.
  
• Co-Op – It is terrible in some main story missions because the other guy is forced to wait until his partner finish of the remaining enemies. This is the result when you try to make the game as close as possible to the movies. It’s really not that bad, but when you make a comparison the older LEGO titles, it’s hard not to notice.

There are oh so many things wrong with this game. Most people have mentioned the dialogues from the Avengers movies which severely limits the humour and creativity. The game forces you into a linear storyline progression, and unless you catch one of the loading screen hints, you won't know that you can replay levels only through the "Go to space" option in the menu. Every time you Alt+Tab out of the game, it switches back to a smaller resolution. Not all of the DLCs required to get a Perfect Game are included in the Season Pass. The game is outmatched by far by the Batman trilogy, and even by Lego Marvel Super Heroes. You'd be better off spending your money on those games.