As Marvel's Avengers campaign comes to a close and is replaced by a similar mission, it reminds me of the dual personalities of many superheroes. The "Avengers" dazzle in their tightest, shiniest spandex throughout the campaign, but when their adventures are over and they return to the routine business of the multiplayer-centric endgame, they blend in with the crowd. Inorganic, but unrecognizable except for the appearance of a well-known superhero.

The frustrating thing about Marvel's Avengers is that for the first few hours you can see hints of what could have been a visually spectacular and satisfying adventure, but then you are dominated by a loop of functional and unoriginal missions, which is the actual game Realize that you're going to spend most of your time.

The campaign tells the simple story of future Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, trying to reunite the Avengers after a disaster that created a new wave of superheroes named the "Inhumans". You will be fighting MODOK, a tiny, floating head of limbs that intends to wipe out all the Inhumans, with the help of AIM's chief scientist Monica Rapacchini and her robot army.

It's a very normal Marvel setting, and the script, animation, and voice acting are beautiful throughout. I actively enjoyed the cutscenes and snippets of in-game dialogue.

The relationship between Bruce Banner and Kamala Khan develops beautifully. Banner's confident body language and the mix of exasperated and affable concern she shows for Khan (she has a teenage effervescence and optimism that is exactly what we need in 2020) is a virtuoso feat of voice work and mocap. She also elegantly addresses the fact that, while fresh-faced Khan may be a bit annoying to an unsympathetic 30+ like me, her compelling character arc soon has me completely captivated.

Given the plethora of big names that must be introduced in this campaign, it's understandable that not all relationships get the same level of attention, but each character is still entertaining as they come to life in the Avengers' floating command center. The villain, MODOK, is brought to life brilliantly, with a pustular hypertrophied head that seems to swell with each scene. This performance transforms one of Marvel's goofiest heroes into an eerily soft-spoken and impressive villain.

But once aboard the Avengers' Chimera ship, it becomes a little too obvious that he's caught in the publisher's long game. You roam around the deck as your favorite Avenger, accepting time-limited challenges from vendors, buying gear with real and in-game currency, and using the map to freely participate in missions set in several biomes around the world. Some are played solo, while others are played with up to three Avengers controlled by AI or online players. The fact that there is not much need for communication or balanced squads speaks to the simplicity of the missions and combat.

I could play online with a Hulk in a Hawaiian shirt and fedora, though.

Combat is an odd mix of classic brawling moves like juggling, suspended aerial attacks, and light-heavy combos, as well as the counter-and-dodge-based style of the Arkham games (some moves involve jumping over the head of a shielded enemy to destroy their shield). Small icons at the edge of the screen tell you how close a missile or laser is, and enemy melee attacks are signaled by colored circles. If you hit enough attacks, your rage meter fills up and you can unlock spectacular special moves, such as Iron Man summoning the Hulkbuster mech or Ms. Marvel transforming into a long-limbed giant woman who looks like a swaying inflatable tube girl.

The icons give you a lot to think about as you fill the screen with confetti of special moves performed by mechanized enemies and fellow Avengers. After dozens of hours of play, I often find myself dodging instead of parrying when an enemy's attack circle is white (I dodge if it's red, damn it), the telegraphing of key enemy moves is not at all consistent, and the camera is too close for comfort.

Playing as Ms. Marvel and Black Widow, the speedsters of the group, feels much better than the Hulk. The Hulk's lumbering style doesn't sync well with the already slow animation and floaty jump physics. On the other hand, the flying Iron Man and Thor definitely provide a buzz as they are free to swoop down from far over the heads of their friends and take on the battle. Unfortunately, however, their fine maneuvers and attacks in the air are fiddly and much weaker than in melee combat. Flying may be fun, but the action is really on the ground.

But in a game that emphasizes fanservice, each superhero should have a personality, even at the expense of balance. The characters' moves and attacks are exactly as you would expect from the movies and comics, right down to the indifference with which the Hulk pokes his chest with his toe. In these little moments and in the on-screen clutter of a series of counters and executions before the heroes unleash their special moves, the superhero fantasy shines brilliantly.

The big question comes afterwards. Missions may be set around the world, but the level itself is a sparse expanse of snow, forests, and cities, where you search for a crate hidden in a metal bunker guarded by faceless robots, then destroy some structures or, battlefield style, some control points to achieve the main objective, such as holding a few control points, battlefield style.

The game tries to refine things with awkward platform segments and shield stash hunts (a slightly better stash than the basically endless stashes), but they are visually ugly and unvaried, in contrast to the elegantly animated and designed superheroes running around the As opposed to the elegantly animated and designed superheroes running around.

Also, for some reason, the "power" levels required for the various missions are disparate, greatly limiting the missions that can be tackled; the boss fight missions that SHIELD offers as a daily challenge (to increase your faction rank with SHIELD and buy lock-off gear) were ), but it turned out that I was dozens of levels below what I was capable of doing. These things will improve in the coming months, but as it stands, a significant portion of the endgame is still level-gate.

Returning to the Chimera, the meta-game of daily challenges, endless gear upgrades (with daily "special" items), and missions becomes especially prominent after the campaign. The obsessive feedback loop of repeating missions, gear upgrades, and character leveling is perpetuated, but there is no opportunity to even see the gear upgrades. The only aesthetic change is another costume that is hard to find, otherwise locked behind high levels and real-world currency.

Microtransactions are purely cosmetic and include emotes, nameplates, and execution animations.

Perhaps a substantial single-player campaign will not be enough to satisfy Avenger's marketing objectives. The story is worthy of Marvel movie canon, but it is too short and so far ends up in the shiny packaging of a rudimentary game-as-service.

With the caveat that this is just the beginning, there are plenty of online oriented games with slow starts. There is enough mileage in the combat system with button mashing, especially as new heroes are introduced via DLC. There is not enough strength or variety to justify the long-term investment the game demands.

Not that more justification than a 14-hour campaign and "he's my favorite superhero and he looks great" is required for a day one purchase. But if "Marvel's Avengers" wants to retain its loyal players and expand its player base, it needs to flesh out its vibranium skeleton more. Hopefully, the narrative skills developed in the campaign can be applied to the endgame as well. ......