WHAT IS MARVEL HEROES, AND WHY SHOULD I PLAY IT?

 TRY IT.

So, the wording typically thrown around Marvel Heroes is "Diablo-like", and while accurate to a degree (there is loot a-plenty, and lots of farming to be done!) that doesn't do service to the actual depth or amount of work put into the game.

I personally describe the game as a "Marvel MOBA turned MMO", which is much more accurate. In typical games like Diablo, you'll have a handful of characters, or a few classes, which have very defined playstyles. In MOBA's, each individual character is their own playstyle, and as a result, each new character you pick up is different and interesting. In Marvel Heroes, you have the MOBA character design applied to a Diablo-esque game, where you have a LARGE amount of characters (currently 45, and growing!) who ALL play different from eachother, with their abilities based on their powers and abilities in the Marvel comics.

It definitely has roots in "Diablo" style hack 'n slash games, with a story mode for you to progress and loot pouring out of every enemy, but the similarity stops there: it has it's own twist, in that each non-instanced map (usually for story bosses) is filled with other players, much in a way you'd be in a map in a MMO. So you're playing Diablo, getting your own loot, and there are usually 20-30 other players running around your specific map, all killing enemies and having a good time. Also like MMO's, they have special events (currently there's something called Midtown Madness going on, where it constantly spawns bosses and they drop unique boxes that cause a "loot explosion" around you, typically rewarding very rare loot and experience orbs to drastically boost your character) and something unique to this genre (as far as I know) RAIDS.

While I'm not far enough in the game to have tried out their Raids, it was quite an oddity to me, for them to have a diablo like game and call things "Raids".. except that's exactly what they are. Instanced missions with incredibly strong enemies and bosses with unique mechanics for you to tackle, while trying to earn special raid specific tokens or farming for unique gear for your character.

The loot is plentiful, with varying rarities (no set items, sadly.. but there are "uniques", which is armor specific to each character, and typically provides much greater bonuses than anything you'll find normally) and there's actual endgame content for you to chase after, should you choose to.

The only thing that drastically turns me off about Marvel Heroes, is their current monetization system. It if it wasn't so egregious, I'd be so much happier.

Alright, I'll be fair with it -- it does fall in line with the monetization of MOBA's ($10 characters, $5~10 costumes) but that's such a shock to the system when the game primarily sells itself as a diablo-like. For what you're paying, you're DEFINITELY getting the value of the characters, as each new character you purchase is it's own unique playstyle, but the sticker shock of hopping into a brand new game (after playing Smite, where I paid $30 and unlocked all characters FOREVER... but I accept that it's an oddity) really caused me to wonder if I wanted to invest time and money into something that was (seemingly) so ready to gouge me.

After playing through the game and finally seeing what they have to offer, I accept their value proposition (except on the $200 character pack, you have to be a very dedicated fan to drop $200 in a bundle that doesn't include every character currently released, sheesh) and the "free" elements are admittedly fair; there's no equipment in the game (outside of pets and 'team-ups', which are essentially AI characters, but not essential, and the company does give them out for free during events and the like) that you can, or have to pay real money for, and the additional characters as well as "team ups" can be earned with a currency called "Eternity Splinters", so you don't have to spend a dime on the game to fully enjoy it.

They give you a "sampler" of heroes when you start the game, (I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was 8) that have a cap of level 10. Once you reach 10 with one of the characters, they give you an option to "uncap" that character, but let you know that you can only uncap -1- character for free, but you don't have to choose immediately. You can cap all 10 of the starting characters if you like, to see who you enjoy the best, then choose one to start with, who will then be fully owned by you.

On your "day 2" log in bonus, they also give you 400 Eternity Splinters, which is enough to buy 1 or 2 heroes (they vary from 200 splinters to 600 splinters) or you can buy 2 random hero boxes (175 splinters each) hoping to get one of the more expensive characters, but you can get duplicates (which is highly unlikely at the start of the game, but it IS possible, but if you do, you get a token to power up that characters ultimate ability) so to start off, they give you 2 to 3 new characters to play with, which is more than enough to get you started on your path to the level cap, in which you'll collect a lot of splinters along the way (they drop every 8 minutes from all enemies of your level or higher.)

They also often have sales on their premium currency, and have "BUY ONE GET ONE" deals, where if you buy a character off the online store, or in-game using their premium currency, you'll also get a random hero box, and they run "15% bonus G's (premium currency)" promotions quite often.

The seasonal events, my attraction to the Marvel IP (especially in the wake of the recent movies) and my lack of "MMO" to give me that seasonal feeling really lead me to enjoying Marvel Heroes. It's worth checking out if you're interested in Diablo or MMO's, and it's a completely free game, so all you're losing by trying it is time.

I highly recommend this game.