After having largely made the hand on many adventures of Lara Croft, the last to date having arrived two years ago with the owl Rise of the Tomb Raider, the Canadian studio was therefore able to work entirely on the realization of Marvel's Avengers , announced in 2017. In fact, the project is so huge that more than one firm is involved: Eidos Montreal first, designated as number 2 in the hierarchy by Square-Enix, then a host of other for a total of five declared companies (and no doubt others more discreet for subcontracting). The idea? Build a game (almost) entirely playable in cooperation for up to four people, develop your characters thanks to a level and loot system, add superheroes and content over time... and cultivate your community with battle passes encouraging microtransaction. Yes, it's daring when we talk about Marvel but don't worry: there is also a whole solo part with a real story. By the way, let's start with that.
WHO AVENGE THE AVENGERS ?
While we expected a campaign solely centered on the Avengers - it's a fairly legitimate way of thinking, let's be reassured - the developers finally approach the thing in a rather surprising way: through the eyes of a … teenager. More specifically, those of Kamala Khan, also known as Miss Marvel (the fifth), who first appeared in 2013 in comics. Certainly, this is a daring decision since our dear heroine is far from being known to everyone: this is therefore an opportunity for the screenwriters to dig a "new" character and bring a little blood costs. Kamala Khan certainly denotes: it is a young Pakistani woman from New Jersey, of Muslim faith and who wears the burkini as a costume. Her powers similar to the elastic man of the Fantastic 4 make her uncomfortable: in full acceptance of herself, fan of the Avengers since her childhood, she will have to assume her powers and save the world from a threat that is completely beyond her. Thus, many narrative (and action) phases will take place in his skin since Kamala will have to find the Avengers, dispersed following a terrible incident, to reunite them and defeat the danger. 
The Marvel's Avengers campaign is far from being catastrophic: it is even rather honest, light, without the fuss and is devoured gently without fully marveling.
The context is indeed pessimistic: during “A-Day”, the Stark weapon technology used by the Avengers is diverted for a gigantic attack in the middle of San Francisco. In addition to the thousands of lives that the Avengers were unable to save (including that of Captain America), some of them have their genetics modified, supporting powers: citizens shoot fireballs, others send frost, many open teleportation portals, and Kamala Khan can go elastic. On the verge of inventing mutants, the screenwriters therefore deliver the "inhumans", an integral part of the story of Marvel's Avengers since they are captured by AIM, a gigantic technological company directed by George Tarleton (alias Modok) who took advantage of the dismantling of the Avengers and Stark Industries to dominate global society. Throughout his quest, Kamala will therefore find Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow or even Thor, take refuge in the famous SHIELD helicarrier and all will storm the dubious laboratories of AIM to overcome it. In the middle of co-op objectives then begin several missions only playable in solo, real traditional narrative phases, others completely Hollywood, which will constitute an adventure much better than what we expected. 
Because after Square Enix's marketing and a beta that did not particularly reassure us, it is clear that the Marvel's Avengers campaign is holding up well. Without ever really excelling, the universe of the comic book house proves to be well respected; the characters are effective and Kamala Khan is a rather endearing person despite her status as an unknown and inexperienced novice. Some more intimate passages, others extremely spectacular, come to ventilate a journey which, yes, will reveal its mechanisms very quickly: moreover, many faults remain, starting with a fairly short lifespan (about ten hours of play ) which does not make it possible to exploit the protagonists/antagonists as one would have liked. Likewise, the scenario itself turns out to be quite thin and it is unfortunate to see too few characters from Marvel - there was so much to do! - are present to spice up the writing. The level design also turns out to be extremely repetitive, as are the objectives that repeat themselves endlessly (but this is a problem that does not only apply to solo) but which, thanks to the different heroes that we control in turn, remain pleasant to browse. In short, the campaign of Marvel's Avengers is far from being catastrophic: it is even rather honest, light, without the fuss and is devoured nicely without fully marveling. And it's really not that bad. 
BASTON LAGAFF
With only one hero already, the difficulty of implementing all its in-game specificities and transcribing them into relevant gameplay is real. So imagine with all the Avengers! In the end, few titles have tried it (we still retain the Marvel Ultimate Alliance) and it was Crystal Dynamics that returned this heavy task which, for once, did a pretty good job. The gameplay of Marvel's Avengers is certainly one of its good points and what allows it to be appreciated as an action game of a certain quality: each guy has his own abilities - light attacks, heavy attacks , ranged attacks, special abilities, combos, and special abilities galore - all of which you will need to get to know to fully master. This is also what the solo is for: by allowing you to alternate the different heads, it serves as a pleasant scripted tutorial. In addition to powerful sensations controller in hand with some exhilarating blows and other resolutely enjoyable powers (being able to fly with Iron Man and Thor, it's a hell of a plus that you quickly get used to), we will also notice the development of each of these characters thanks to an extremely complete skill tree, leading to a real evolution in gameplay. There is plenty to do with each member of the cast, especially since the software introduces a whole mechanical equipment in which you will have to fully immerse yourself. 
It's a decision that may have surprised at first, but Marvel's Avengers actually relies on pure loot mechanics: from defeated enemies, in chests, at the end of missions or in stores, we will recover elements of armor (non-cosmetic), all with a level and rarity order. The latter will define the number of bonuses it grants and the number of times it will be possible to upgrade them using resources collected in the field; on the contrary, we can dissolve the items that we do not use to recover the materials, to reinvest later in the objects of our choice. A pure and hard RPG aspect since it will be necessary to really invest in these precise facets which, in addition to raising the level of power of your character (which should ideally correspond to the missions of corresponding level), will have direct consequences in the fights. Thus, for example, we can assign ourselves a very special defense against certain elementary attacks such as fire, cold or quantum damage; have a percentage chance of delivering radioactive or shrinking blows (thanks to the Pym Particle, aka Ant-Man); influence your teammates when you trigger a special ability… and the list is still very, very long. For those who do not want to strain, it is possible to equip items at the best power level automatically but that is not really the point and besides, the progression will be much less efficient. It seems obvious that by launching an Avengers game, some absolutely do not want to plunge body and soul into preposterous menus - it's a risky bias on the part of developers but nevertheless relevant to maintain its community over the long term. 
And to raise our character in levels, recover new loot as well as a lot of resources, Marvel's Avengers offers dozens of side missions that we can select from a virtual globe, in the SHIELD ship (which will be used in passing of hub in which the different stores will sit). This is undoubtedly where the game sins enormously: the new production of Crystal Dynamics suffers from a level design with confusing simplicity and ultra-repetitive progress. There's no need to go overboard since the fact is quickly obvious and is proven in the end-game content, on which many hopes are nevertheless based: most of the missions are based on the same concepts and structures, even and even. We are talking about a more or less large open area in which chests are “hidden” on the right and on the left, sometimes requiring you to find the switches to open the door that gives access to it, and a complex of the 'AIM to infiltrate or a SHIELD shelter to dig up, all punctuated by waves of enemies. While the artistic direction of the exterior spaces differs depending on the region - sometimes desert environments, sometimes snowy tundra, sometimes an American city - that of the interior buildings, it absolutely... never changes. Constantly the same corridors, the same rooms, the same architectures and a few variants of objectives (capture of zone, destruction of energy cores and tutti quanti) which come back in a loop with a recurring bestiary, here is the real content from Marvel's Avengers. With the entire Marvel universe at your disposal, why not have more villains as bosses? Truly scripted quests? Mythical places to visit? Far too quickly, the game design gets pinpointed and, once the story is over, you find yourself doing the same thing in a flavor that is somewhat lost over time. 
AMERICA’S ASS
Fortunately, the rest is solid enough that we want to go back several times - we are talking about effective sensations and several complete gameplay to discover, not to mention the cooperative aspect. You know the saying, "it's always less painful together" (we invented it right away) and sharing these intense fighting sessions with one or more friends is an obvious pleasure, especially since the Other heroes' AI is far, very far from successful. However, during our multiplayer tests, many loading time bugs and/or black screens occurred, clearly hampering our games: moreover, these particularly long loadings turn out to be recurrent, some of them being simply infinite (this remains minor but very present). Marvel's Avengers is in fact far from being flawless in terms of its technique: on PS4 Pro, we experienced several crashes, very significant drops in framerate when the action becomes overloaded (and unreadable for once, the fights can quickly become rough because of the visual effects), painful bugs in the selection of audio languages, a problem with displaying 3D models... In another register, the subtitles turn out to be damn badly thought out since instead of transcribing only the words of the characters, these also describe all their actions and gestures and cannot be configured. Nothing too serious, but there is enough to break the immersion when you play in VOSTFR. 
Moreover, note the pretty English dubbing with the presence of Nolan North and Troy Baker in the role of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner while the French version, all the same a bit kitsch on the edges, turns out to be honest without performing as much as her English-speaking cousin. On the other hand, we must admit that Marvel's Avengers is a hell of a beautiful game with several sets, light and particle effects, textures and other characters with first-rate production, reminding us that we have all the same one of the finest productions of this generation. It's just a pity that the bugs mentioned above are present and that the ultra-linear artistic direction does not make it possible to exploit its full potential. It goes without saying that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions have us particularly curious, with the developers promising ray-tracing, optimizations all over the place and almost non-existent loading times. In itself, it would then be an edition erasing most of its technical defects... and that's very good news. 
ASSEMBLED, BUT WITHOUT WHEAT
Finally, it is impossible to overlook the aspect of Marvel's Avengers that is causing so much debate: its game-service and microtransaction policy. As it stands, the game offers content that is still too repetitive to keep its players awake over time (by which we mean “several months”) and above all, the cosmetic rewards are a tad to unlock. In such a game, it seems obvious that fan-service is an essential component, one of the spearheads moreover widely acclaimed by Square-Enix in the marketing campaign. Thus, each character has skins (some of which turn out to be just colorimetric repetitions, it's a shame!), finish-moves, banners or more or less crisp emotes that we would love to unlock: you can imagine although they wouldn't be taken in like that since most of the time, everything pushes you to take out the credit card. Each superhero has his own free battle pass, a Challenge Card, where each level gives access to a cosmetic item or a small amount of virtual currency (which is otherwise acquired with real money). To progress in this pass, it is required either to complete the two daily challenges and the two weekly challenges (an option that does not pierce the wallet but deliberately long) or… to proceed to the cash. And as much to say that the prices are particularly indecent, leading then to a certain frustration for all the refractories of this kind of business model. Worse still, the Challenge Cards of future playable characters that will arrive will be paid outright! Understandable gestures given the market trends that have already proven themselves but that we definitely do not endorse given the prices (twenty euros minimum for an outfit, that seems very abusive). Fortunately, all this remains purely visual and does not affect the progress but, the game proving to be repetitive, this is a consolation on which we would have gladly fallen back. 
On the other hand, concerning future additional content, it goes without saying that we are waiting for the developers on a firm footing. All DLC will be free and will provide access to new hubs, new levels, new objectives, new villains, and most importantly, new superheroes. Kate Bishop will be the first on the list and we already know that Hawkeye, Antman, Black Panther or even Spider-Man (exclusively on PlayStation) will join the cast gradually. Without a doubt, Marvel's Avengers is a title that will improve over time, which should expand considerably and which will thus correct some of its faults if Crystal Dynamics works hard to propose new concepts of missions, level design and everything what follows. For the moment, we have here an action title that is much less bad than we dared to hope for - even rather good on many points - but still too perfectible to keep going and stay in the pantheon of the Tenth Art.
