Marvel Heroes MMO launches on Steam, mixing comic characters with… Diablo?

For those of you who have been looking for a new superhero MMO to get into, I’ve got some news for you. Marvel Heroes is out and available on Steam, offering up a free-to-play MMO that lets you take on the role of variety of heroes as they struggle against some of the most memorable villains in the Marvel Universe. But don’t expect this to be much at all like the now-defunct City of Heroes, or even DC Universe Online. I’ve jumped in, I’ve played it, and the one title that best sums up the Marvel Heroes MMO is Diablo. Diablo III as a matter of fact, though far less feature-filled and obviously with a vastly different setting. But if you’ve been looking for either an opportunity to play as one of a number of heroes in the Marvel universe (including my personal favorite, Daredevil) OR you’ve been on the hunt for a random-loot dungeon-crawl, well – grab this game ASAP in that case.

I’ve slugged my way up to level 12 in this game as Daredevil, and so far I have to say it seems like a very solid F2P game. Unique, certainly – there just aren’t that many Diablo-ish MMOs out there, and this one is solidly done. Not quite as fleshed out as, say… Path of Exile, but for a just-launched game it’s about as much as you can ask for. And I don’t just mean Diablo-ish in terms of perspective – we’re talking randomized loot, complete with random mooks dropping increasingly powerful versions of Captain America’s shield or the Hulk’s… uh, apparently his anger comes in bottled form in this game. They certainly throw a ton of villains at you – you meet Green Goblin and the Living Laser practically within moments of playing, and you’re soon enmeshed in a fight that has you going up against the Maggia, the Hand, AIM and HYDRA in short order, which is quite a lot of Marvel references to go through so quickly. My main complaint there so far is entirely summed up with ‘Doc Ock isn’t fat enough’ – seriously, he looks slender and buff when you face off against him, and that’s just wrong. Either way, for those of you want to give this a stab, it’s available on Steam – and set this one for an overnight download, because it’s a 10 gig transfer to get you started.