Avengers Beta Review: 4 Ups & 6 Downs

1. Tons Of MCU References In Combat & Movesets

From Thor saying "I am mighty" to the way he catches Mjolnir by jutting his elbow back like in 2012's Avengers, Crystal Dynamics want to remind you of the MCU throughout.

The opening stretch alone where San Francisco is beset by AIM soldiers is reminiscent of the perspective-shifting one-shot from Joss Whedon's epic, and you'll start playing as Thor before the camera zooms up and along to an in-flight Iron Man.

It doesn't stop there, though.

Many specific combat animations are callbacks to signature beats from the MCU. Black Widow leaps on the back of Taskmaster in a way that's identical to how she controlled a Chitauri with dual daggers, Captain America does a leaping horizontal spin attack popularised in Age of Ultron and Civil War.

Iron Man's close-quarters light attack combo is the same "pirouette, stop and fire" choreography we see in the Iron Man movies, and Hulk can grab an enemy's leg to perform the same repeated one-arm smash that defeats Loki.

Crystal Dynamics may not have been able to do an MCU tie-in game alongside the movies, but the lifeblood of those movies' action scenes is present here.