Over the summer of my freshman year of high school, I developed an addiction. It was pretty awful, I blew off friends, lost my girlfriend, stayed up for days at a time and pretty much said screw everything in my life that wasn’t Diablo II. Fast forward almost 20 years; I am introduced to Marvel Heroes Omega.
For the uninformed, Marvel Heroes Omega is an action RPG similar to the DiabloOver the summer of my freshman year of high school, I developed an addiction. It was pretty awful, I blew off friends, lost my girlfriend, stayed up for days at a time and pretty much said screw everything in my life that wasn’t Diablo II. Fast forward almost 20 years; I am introduced to Marvel Heroes Omega.
For the uninformed, Marvel Heroes Omega is an action RPG similar to the Diablo franchise in many ways, but instead of fighting zombies, dwarves, and the like, you’ll face off against Marvel Comics’ rouges gallery while helping the various factions from the Marvel Universe. I know, this has been done in the Ultimate Alliance series, but the combat and level progression system featured here is much, much deeper. Each character from the current roster of 40 heroes (more are available on PC and are being added regularly) features a number of abilities true to their character that leaves a number of possible builds for the hero you choose. Each character plays as their own and not just a swap of character models that you would expect from such a large roster – even characters that heavily rely on guns such as Deadpool or the Punisher play completely different.
Your level of enjoyment will depend on which character you select and how well it fits your play style. Due to the free to play model, you will need to choose carefully. Luckily, you are permitted to try any character you like, free of charge, through level 10. As of this time, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus members can get Daredevil for free and are provided enough in game currency to buy one of a select number of characters. While not what I would call lower tiered characters, as Angela and Hulk are some fan favorites, the more relevant the characters, the more expensive it is to play as them.
Some characters can be purchased individually for a flat fee ($19.99 for Deadpool, Spider-Man, War Machine and Black Cat; the last two being available only via this method), in group packs ($59.99 for a handful of The Avengers or X-Men, $39.99 for The Guardians of the Galaxy two pack), by paying for them using the games purchasable currency, or by earning them with collectible shards in game. Additionally, a VIP program was just added that gave everyone who spent any amount of money in the game the character Nightcrawler free of charge, as well as 5 of these shards daily. The characters you can earn will range from 200 to 1350 of these shards. To give those of you who prefer to keep your free to play games free an idea of how much grinding is involved: I’ve earned about 500 of these shards in approximately 25 hours of play with the VIP status.
I spent most of my time in the game with Deadpool. As a huge fan of the character that predates his recent box office success; he was my first pick and well worth the $19.99 price point. Much like the other characters featured in the game, his personal quirks and personality were incorporated into his development. Upon reaching level 10, you can begin zipping around on the gigantic levels using a run or vehicular ability. While some characters use their natural or trademark abilities (Spider-Man’s web slinging, Ghost Riders motorcycle), Deadpool has a pink Vespa. I found him, like most of the characters, to be most effective while using his ranged abilities. While not all of the melee characters are awful (most are), the ranged game is the one you’ll want to play. Sadly, most of the melee fighters without any ranged abilities struggle to find a target in larger groups of enemies. This resulted in taking a huge amount of damage and dying as your character stands there, running in place, head first into a group of enemies, trying to attack one at the back of the group.
Death does not carry much of a penalty, since you can be revived by friends or other players in a hub area, or simply respawn at the beginning of the room you died in. While I did spend some time playing with friends, it did not really add to the gameplay beyond being able to with them. If you prefer to form a party for your dungeon crawling, there is no way to either type or verbally communicate with random players in the world beyond looking up their gamertag and sending them a message from the Xbox dashboard. With that being said, gathering a party is a little harder than it should have been.
While far from perfect, Marvel Heroes Omega offers a great deal of entertainment, and the fact that it is free is an added bonus. As a lifelong Marvel fan, we’ve been handed a fair amount of poor licensed games in the past, and this surpasses a number of those in enjoyment and value. I will still spend hours upon hours in this virtual world hoping my wife won’t leave me. If you’re a fan of the genre or the Marvel license, I strongly suggest at least trying the title, as you have nothing to lose.… Expand
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