Spider-Man 2 Is A HUGE Disappointment

6. No Venom For 14 Hours (Then He’s Gone In 2)

Like millions of us who saw any of the trailers or marketing materials surrounding Spider-Man 2, we expected Venom to show up for the majority.

Every ounce of this game's push was fully backed by the character, from a tease at the end of the 2018 game, to the announcement of Tony "Candyman" Todd as the voice, to the game's own Collector's Edition statue comprising Peter and Miles fighting Venom together.

Well... that doesn't happen.

Besides the final fight being a one-on-one where Miles takes down Venom with some help from MJ, this all directly contrasts what Tony Todd himself said in an interview in December 2022.

Referencing the sequence in 2020's Miles Morales where Miles and Peter struggle to contain Rhino as he barges through the city, Todd stated "That's what it's going to be like". This easily went alongside the aforementioned statue, and things like the game's key art, which repeatedly showed both Spideys being stared down by Venom, in an alleyway, and in mid-air. It seemed a city-wide duel was on the cards.

Sadly, Venom doesn't show up for 14 hours... of a 15-18 hour story. You get a supremely fun sequence where you play as him, then a symbiote invasion is launched and stopped seemingly overnight, with everything over soon after.

Why front-load the marketing so much with one of the most beloved characters of all time; build up his appearance so well across the original game and the first 80% of this story, only to whiff at the very end??

Deleted scenes cut for time? DLC somewhere down the line? We'll have to wait and see.