Lego Marvel's Avengers

Lego Marvel's Avengers is a Lego-themed action-adventure video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows. It is the spin-off to Lego Marvel Super Heroes and the second installment of the Lego Marvel franchise. The game primarily follows the plots of both The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, as well as their Marvel Cinematic Universe films Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The game features characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as characters from comic books. Characters include Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Thor, Ultron, Loki, Winter Soldier, Falcon, Vision, and War Machine, as well as some lesser known characters such as Devil Dinosaur and Fin Fang Foom. It includes the characters of the Avengers team along with many others. The game was released on 26 January 2016.

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to Lego's long-running series of franchise video games, with a focus on puzzle-solving interspersed with action. Players have to solve puzzles spread across the game environment in order to progress through levels. While action and fighting are featured liberally throughout the game, it is kept very child-friendly as per Lego custom. The game features New York City as the main large open-world hub, but also, for the first time, includes a dozen other movie significant areas players can travel to, including Asgard, Malibu, South Africa, The Helicarrier, the Bartons' farm, Washington D.C., and Sokovia. These hubs also feature heavy playability, with hundreds of side quests and bonus levels such as rescuing citizens in trouble, races, and more. The main story actually takes up a fairly small fraction of the game's total "completion". Whilst the game's story is predominantly focused on the first two Avengers films, and there are single levels based on Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Characters
The game features over two hundred playable characters, including some characters (but not all) returning from the previous game. The heroes are drawn not just from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the comics as well. Director Arthur Parsons stated: "It's a celebration of everything about the Avengers. Comic books, movies, cartoons. It's everything you love about the Avengers in video games". Confirmed additional characters include Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Sam Wilson's Captain America appearance, America Chavez, Jane Foster's Thor form, Wiccan, and Speed. Every two characters have their own unique team-up abilities. There are even separate ones for what character is triggering the attack, meaning nearly 800 team-up moves.

Audio
Unlike Lego Marvel Super Heroes, which used original voice acting, Lego Marvel's Avengers utilizes audio from the six films being adapted for the game, including voice and music, similar to Lego The Lord of the Rings, The Lego Movie Videogame, Lego The Hobbit, and Lego Jurassic World. The game utilizes the archive audios from the actors in the films. However, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Ashley Johnson, Hayley Atwell, Michael Peña, and Ming-Na Wen reprise their respective roles from the films and TV shows, and Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee returned to voice himself. Robbie Daymond voices A-Bomb. Lou Ferrigno voices himself and Greg Miller voiced Aldrich Killian.

Downloadable content
Free PlayStation timed exclusive downloadable content was announced. This included a character pack and a level based on Ant-Man, which was released on April 6, 2016, and a Captain America: Civil War character pack that was released at launch. A season pass was also available during launch, which gave players exclusive access to the "Explorers Pack", story levels and over 40 additional playable characters. These story levels were based on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television series as well as levels focused on the comic versions of Black Panther, the Masters of Evil, Captain Marvel, and Doctor Strange. A Spider-Man character pack was also released on May 24, 2016, which saw the Civil War version of the character as a playable character.

Reception
Upon its release, Lego Marvel's Avengers received mixed reviews. It has a score of 71/100 on Metacritic. Game Informer Andrew Reiner gave the game 7.75 out of 10. IGN awarded it a score of 6.7 out of 10, saying "LEGO Marvel's Avengers is great fun, but unfortunately restricted by sticking to the Marvel Cinematic Universe". Destructoid awarded it a score of 6 out of 10, saying "it's a fun mindless romp through a couple of interesting setpieces, but not a whole lot more than that when it comes down to it". PlayStation LifeStyle awarded it 7.5 out of 10, saying "some technical hiccups and the occasional unclear objective can hamper your progress, but these can all be overcome in a game that exudes a fun-loving attitude throughout". GameSpot awarded it a score of 7.0 out of 10, saying "if you've played a Lego game in recent years then you'll know what to expect: another familiar and fun adventure that you can enjoy with your kids". Hardcore Gamer awarded it a score of 3 out of 5, saying "while a decent action-adventure title, Avengers does little to innovate or set itself apart from a vast library of superior Lego games". PC Gamer awarded it a score of 52%, calling it "a half-hearted recreation of some fun movies, with almost nothing to offer over its predecessor".