This was clearly supposed to be the Arkham City of the Marvel universe, but is it? No, not really. The game feels like Spiderman does compared to Batman — still inexperienced and a little rough around the edges. The story is entertaining, the voice acting and the soundtrack are good, but the gameplay leaves something to be desired. First of all, there is not much of additional content beside the main story. Oh, there is plenty in terms of quantity, but, in essence, it’s the same few mission types repeated over and over again: you have to either fight a bunch of dudes, or stealthily take out a bunch of dudes, or chase something, or hit checkpoints throughout the city before the timer runs out. That would not be such a bad thing if there were interesting stories behind those side missions, but, with a couple of exceptions, there really aren’t, so there is little motivation for you to complete them. Well, initially, there is some, because they give you the resources needed to upgrade your skills and equipment, but, once that’s done, they become pretty much meaningless. Speaking of skills and equipment, Spiderman has plenty of cool moves and gadgets, and a lot of suits to choose from, so no complaints on that score (well, one: a multi-finisher is sorely lacking). Now let us look at each mission type in more detail.
Firstly, there is combat, which is what you will be mostly doing. It can be fun – the animations are well done, the sound effects are satisfying, and there is challenge – but it can also be frustrating as hell. Since the arenas are multi-tiered, unlike the Arkham series, the combat loses fluidity: it is pretty much impossible to beat all the enemies without breaking your combo because they are scattered all over the place. The second reason it is pretty much impossible is that the dodge move is worse than useless at times: Spiderman will stick to walls instead of dodging, dodge in the wrong direction, or dodge and still be hit because the timing is completely counterintuitive. The third reason is that the game sometimes craps out so many enemies at once that it is physically impossible to avoid their attacks. The boss fights are okay, but not especially memorable.
Secondly, there is stealth, and it is phoned in. All you have to do is pick off the enemies marked “safe”, then easily lure the remaining ones away from their friends. Even when the enemies know you are there, they do not do anything to make your job harder (like the enemies in the Arkham games that destroy or mine vantage points, for example). In fact, it often becomes easier because they stray away from each other instead of covering each other’s backs. Clearing out an enemy base entirely by stealth is impossible; once you have taken out a certain number of enemies, you are automatically detected. There are no stealth-related achievements or rewards whatsoever, only stealth challenges where you simply have to take out the enemies as quickly as possible. There are also stealth missions in the main story where you play as MJ and some black kid, but they are pretty linear and offer very little challenge. In conclusion: they would have been better off just forgoing stealth altogether and focusing more on combat.
Finally, there are the platforming missions, and they really suck. As long as you are simply getting from point A to point B, there is no problem, but, when you have to hit a specific point in space at a specific time, it becomes a nightmare. Since Spiderman can’t fly, only jump and swing, his movement mostly relies on momentum, which means you will keep overshooting or flopping down short of your target. Chasing a car through the streets of Manhattan can take forever (“Ha-ha, I can execute sharp turns and move in a straight line, and you can’t, what are you gonna do about it, loser?”).
Conclusion: Spider-Man feels more like a rough draft than a finished game. Worth playing, but not the kind of game you will want to return to.