Overview

In Marvel United, players take on the roles of superheroes trying to defeat a villain before they can complete their nefarious schemes. Players will play cards from their personal decks to take actions and trigger abilities, but also will be able to share the actions from the card of the previous player. The villain will take turns as well, moving around the board and advancing their villainous plot. Only once the heroes have completed two of the three objectives can they confront the villain directly, defeating them to win the game.

Game Feel

Every decision of which card to play affects both you and the next player, which leads to very organic cooperation as players discuss how they should approach each turn. The team’s focus is on completing two objectives so that the villain can be attacked, but there is the question of which of the objectives to pursue. The objective to clear four threats is enticing as many times the villain-specific threats have negative effects, and clearing them also gives access to the end-of-turn abilities of each location. On the other hand, the objectives for defeating thugs and rescuing civilians are also important because neglecting either of them can lead to overflows, triggering a villain-specific ability. While you can certainly work on all three, completely finishing two is what really moves the needle toward victory. But you also might not want to complete one objective too quickly, as the first finished objective causes the villain to “escalate” and start acting more frequently.

While the entire system is very plug-and-play with various heroes and locations, it is really the different villains that give each game the most distinct flavor. Not only does the villain have its own action deck and abilities triggered on overflows, but the six threats that begin the game at the six locations are also specific to the villain and can greatly change the feel of the game. These threats can vary from local effects that make actions in that space more difficult to challenging henchmen that act as “mini-bosses” that need to be defeated to effects that will power up the villain if not cleared before confronting them in combat. And that progression from completing objectives to fighting the villain happens very quickly. Usually playing in a half hour or less, the game drops you right into the action and the cooperation and unexpected villain actions keep everyone locked in the entire time.

FAQ

Player Counts - Marvel United plays well with anywhere from 2 to 4 players, though 3 might be the sweet spot as it aligns with the villain acting after every third player turn. While there are rules for true single-hero solo play, the better solo experience is just grabbing two to three heroes and controlling all of them yourself.

Abstract vs. Thematic - The superhero theme comes through strong, especially if players are familiar with the characters and are willing to get into the flavor of the actions they are taking. The core system has certainly abstracted your heroic endeavors to a few basic actions that can feel underwhelming on the surface, but everything comes together in a way that tells a fun comic book story. Additionally, it is fun to see the way that the powers of different heroes and villains are represented in the game, often in ways that provide meaningful variation in the strategic considerations.

Luck vs. Skill - While the order you draw your cards and the actions of the villain add a lot of randomness, the actions you take between villain turns are basically deterministic and leave a lot of room for the team to skillfully approach the puzzle to increase their chances of winning.

Multiplayer Solitaire vs. Highly Interactive - And while the villain behavior is randomized and hidden, it is driven by a relatively small deck of cards. As players become more familiar with specific villains, there is a nice balance of surprise and strategic prediction.

Short Setup vs. Long Setup - For a game that can play in close to 20 minutes, it can actually take a little bit to select locations, populate them with thugs and civilians, select heroes and a villain, and review the rules specific to that villain. And watch out — if you start down the near-endless rabbit hole of expansion content, it can start to make it even more tedious to get the game up and running.

Easy to Teach vs. Hard to Teach - The core systems are simple and streamlined, with most of the complexity coming from the villains. But given that you are a team, it is easy to teach and just make clarifications as you go.

Low Setup Variability vs. High Setup Variability - Marvel United is a game clearly designed for extreme variability. Every game is a unique combination of heroes, locations, and a villain, and while the combinations in just the base box may seem limited, it still offers a lot of replay value that starts to go through the roof with just the addition of one or two expansions.

Things to Like

✅ Action Sharing Drives Cooperation - The core system of creating a “storyline” of cards where you always share the actions of the previous player not only exudes a comic book flavor, but also facilitates the kind of cooperative discussion that is ideal in a team game. It takes cards that are almost too simple — mostly variations of the same 4 basic actions with the occasional special ability — and adds more nuance by requiring players to plan ahead and have their plans defined by the combination of two cards. It really is a perfect core mechanism for a game that is aiming to evoke the feeling of a team of superheroes while keeping the rules complexity as low a possible.

✅ Robust System for Meaningful Variety - Nearly every part of the core system in Marvel United is designed to be variable, and the result is a game with an endless well of design space to keep reinventing the kind of experiences it can provide. Nowhere is this more evident than with the villains. The template of special rules, unique “Bam!” and overflow effects, a custom deck of master plan cards, and 6 threat cards specific to that villain leave so much space for the designers to continue to bring new ideas to the table. And the system gets pushed even further in some expansions that introduce alternate game modes or mini-campaigns such as the excellent Sinister Six, which has you fighting 6 villains at once, or the 4-game Infinity Gauntlet campaign that puts infinity stones on the line in a series of games leading up to a final battle against Thanos.

✅ Easy to Get to the Table - And while Marvel United certainly isn’t the first crowdfunding game to go over the top with the amount of expansion content, the game length and accessibility means it is actually a lot more feasible to use all that variation. The game can work well with groups ranging from casual players, to heavier gamers looking for a quick cooperative filler, to kids, or even a mixed group of all the above. The short playing time keeps it as a low commitment, but also means you can play more than once or tackle one of the more involved game modes with a more motivated group. And while a game that is this light can have a hard time standing up to repeated plays for players that tend to prefer heavier games, the variety in every session goes a long way to ensure that players don’t tire of the system.

Things to Dislike

❌ Subpar Ratio of Setup to Gameplay - While the setup time isn’t terrible, it can definitely feel a little disproportionate once you see how long it takes to play the game. It probably takes around 10 minutes to get everything prepped and ready to go, and I have definitely had games where the actual play time has fallen in the 10-20-minute range. This is alleviated a bit if you play multiple games in a row since it is a little quicker to set things up again, but if you are wanting to randomize all the variability again, you will still need to put away all the heroes, locations, and villain and select new ones before you can knock out another quick game.

❌ Adding More Variety Comes at a Cost - In order to combat that setup-to-playtime ratio, I have gone to great lengths to keep the game easy to set up despite owning a lot of expansions (link to my storage solution below). It is great that there is so much expansion content available to play into the strength of the games variable systems, but you do have to start to ask yourself how much space you want this game to take up on your shelf and if it is starting to actually get harder to get the game to the table. And you do not, I repeat YOU DO NOT need all of the expansions to have a great time with this game. My recommendation would be picking up the core set to see if you enjoy it, and if you do, adding one or two expansions (such as the Return of the Sinister Six) or alternate core boxes (such as the X-Men base set). Adding just a few extra heroes and villains will leave you with a game that still has more mix-and-match variability than most other games on your shelves.

Our Ratings

Ryan (24 Plays) - 8.5 Daniel (10 Plays) - 7.5

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Is It For You?

If you are put off by simpler games, don’t like Marvel, or are a completionist that won’t be able to control yourself buying all the expansions, then Marvel United might not be for you. 👎

But if you want a quick and accessible cooperative game that has a widely appealing superhero theme and a ton of variability to keep the experience fresh for many repeated plays, then we think Marvel United is a great option to check out. 👍

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Marvel United Review