Developer Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal

Publisher Square Enix

Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series

Release Out now (PC, PS4, Stadia, Xbox One), November 10 (Xbox Series), November 12 (PS5)

The comic book industry has long divvied up its own history over a Golden Age, a Silver Age, and then, perhaps realising where this pattern would end up, a ‘Modern Age’ that began in the 1980s and remains ongoing. Such designations now seem almost quaint next to the cinematic age of the superhero which, over the last decade in particular, has dominated the box office and recently culminated in the highest-grossing film of all time. The mass market has never loved spandex more and, with Hollywood conquered, games are the next medium in line.

This has ambitions beyond any superhero game in history

Marvel’s Avengers is far from the first Marvel videogame, and is not even the vanguard for this new age of mega-budget would-be blockbusters (that would be 2018’s excellent Marvel’s Spider-Man). It owes a debt to the knockabout Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, as well as Rocksteady’s Arkham games. But be under no illusions, true believers: this has ambitions beyond any superhero game in history.

So, as Cap shields his eyes and looks out across one of this world’s glorious, verdant vistas, the sun shines down on a service game. Marvel’s Avengers is a weird experience, and the first part of that feeling comes from a campaign which is by turns exhilarating and dull, then turns out to have borne little relation to what you’ll be doing in multiplayer. This is not an inherently bad idea. The singleplayer campaign opens with a well-executed sequence that introduces the Avengers, with no little charm, through the eyes of Kamala Khan, who in this opening is a fan but will soon become the story’s focus. As things inevitably go wrong, you’re shuffled between Avengers and given control for brief-but-bravura action sequences, and there’s a big bang at the end.

We pick up five years later and, as the new Ms. Marvel, start about reuniting the original five Avengers. This involves a mix of heavily on-rails platforming, a bit of fighting, plenty of cutscenes, and a hugely disappointing lineup of villains. By our count, there are three bona-fide supervillains in this game (Taskmaste, Abomination and Modok), while various other bosses are humans in mech suits, giant robots or, if you’re really lucky, a hovering robot warship.

When you consider the history of the Avengers this seems incredible. Marvel’s Spider-Man understood that, while you might have Doctor Octopus cackling away throughout the campaign, it was important to give players a procession of colourful B-listers on the way to him. Going by the combat experience of Marvel’s Avengers, Captain America’s deadliest opponents are the flame vents on big robots. Sega’s awful PS3-era Iron Man game had a better selection of supervillains.