X-Men: Destiny

The action is fun, if not monotonous, and there is simply nothing special about it at all. Still, I had fun the entire time I was playing the game, and that speaks volumes in my book.

Add in some middling environment and character visuals on top of the lackluster gameplay, and X-Men Destiny has some big problems.

There's no reason to play it, but it is not actively bad the way that some games are. It simply exists to kill time, and to make you think of the six thousand ways it could be better.

Unfortunately it feels like Silicon Knights wrote the story on the back of a cocktail napkin and employed absolutely zero imagination in building the enemies we'd be facing.

X-Men: Destiny feels like a demo for a bigger game that never was. Little of the excitement that could have followed in the booted footsteps of X-Men Legends or Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is buried within its too-short campaign and thin smattering of gameplay. It's Dynasty Warriors for mutants; it can be fun at the outset, even with all the button-mashing, but the boxed-in world is not enough to distract from the hollow feeling of this particular destiny.

We expected so much more. [Christmas 2011, p.65]

Despite a few interesting game mechanics and Mike Carey's writing, X-Men Destiny is a pale adventure with no challenge whatsoever and really outdated visuals. Fans of the franchise would rather play as one of their beloved heroes or villains instead of a generic super kid, that's for sure.

The premise is full of universe-expanding potential, but ultimately, it's undermined by mind-numbing gameplay.

Small annoyances like low quality environments and repeating enemy models may deter some players. One bright spot is the dialog, written by longtime comic book writer Mike Casey.

The good news for beat-'em-up fans is that the combat is fast, furious, and mostly satisfying. The bad news is that repetitive enemy types, lack of cooperative play, and confining levels are decidedly not. Even on the hardest difficulty setting, you'll beat the game within seven hours.

Even for an action brawler, this one is as mindless as they come.

The new adventure of the X-Men is poor and simple. Although the story looked interesting, the result is an average action game, without anything remarkable, that only hardcore X-Men fans will enjoy.

Destiny promised to bring a lot of choices – side to choose, moral choices… but despite on how you decide, the game won't change – you will beat hundreds and hundreds similar enemies. [Dec 2011]

Between those passive tendencies, the lack of strategic combat, a smattering of trite escort missions and the lack of much R in the RPG equation, the total X-Men Destiny package ends up kind of boring. It would've been nice to see Silicon Knights right its up-ended ship, but this game makes me seriously wonder if the studio's ship has already sailed.

About as middle of the road as it's possible to get without being some kind of pedestrian crossing. X-Men Destiny does everything in as average a fashion as possible and then some. Even hardcore X-Men fans will feel let down by the story and action that is served up, and even the few good ideas are rapidly swamped in mediocrity.

Although X-Men Destiny is extremely short, wrapping up at six hours or less, the game's many customization options, including three power sets with multiple individual power options, three playable characters with different backgrounds, and two factions to join, give it a lot of replay value. Unfortunately, other elements of the game are not up to snuff, and it's difficult to recommend as a full-priced product.

We can accept that X-Men: Destiny doesn't look the part, but the gameplay isn't anything to write home about either. The only thing it has going for it is the ability to combine mutant power.

X-Men Destiny is a very boring game. The gameplay is nothing special, the graphics are just not good and we haven't even begun talking about all of the glitches. It's great however that you can make a lot of choices while playing the storyline, but it's too little too late.

A straightforward 5-6 hours action game with very tiny RPG elements. Even a true fan on the X-Men series should think twice about buying this.

Overall, X-Men Destiny is a game you should avoid. It has little in the way of redeeming qualities and other than racking up some relatively easy Xbox Achievements or PlayStation Trophies, X-Men Destiny comes across as an unfinished product that will likely hit bargain bins come boxing day. Sadly, Silicon Knights' slump continues on.

A disappointing game, with interesting premises but with a boring gameplay and underdeveloped RPG elements.

If you can swallow the pad-mashing mechanics and wince your way through Silicon Knights' ham-fisted attempts at delivering back-story, there's a certain satisfaction to be had replaying to unlock new suits and powers.

X-Men: Destiny isn't a bad game -- it just plays like an unfinished one.