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This time around, the X-Men have teamed up with their one-time enemies -- the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants -- bringing new characters like Magneto, Juggernaut, and Toad under the control of your keyboard or control pad. This unlikely alliance was brought about by following the old dictum of "the enemy of my enemy is the guy who's going to grind us ALL into mutant-flavored paste if we don't team up to stop him." In short, the world's oldest and perhaps most powerful mutant, Apocalypse, wants to do bad things to both good and bad people, so Magneto and Professor X decide to set aside old grudges in order to survive.
New story aside, the game plays pretty much like last year's X-Men Legends: you assemble a team of up to four characters, and take control of one of them at a time while the computer (or other players) controls the other three. Flitting your control from one character to another is as simple as tapping a key. After clobbering enough bad guys and completing an objective or two, you level your characters up and customize them by allocating points to attributes and super powers. Repeat this process until you want to revisit the current chapter's "town" where you can get new mission briefings, buy or sell equipment, and generally poke around to see who will add some context to the overarching storyline through conversation.
Certain character combos grant bonuses.
It's worth noting here that there's no more aimless wandering through the sprawling X-Mansion grounds this time around. The town hubs change between each of the game's chapters and each one has everything you need just a few steps away. Raven further increased the overall pace of the game by giving you a "town portal" ability that lets you zip back to the hub whenever you want to take advantage of its many amenities, such as the equipment shop or the save game point. A new portable version of the Danger Room also makes an appearance, and (as in the first game) you can collect Danger Room programs that allow you to take a break from the main game to hone your skills and complete various challenges for fun and profit.
Despite the return of these previous elements, the overall difference between this sequel and the original game can be pretty much summed up by "More! More! More!" There are more characters (17 available from the start and three more that can be unlocked), more hidden objects like comic-book covers and concept art sketches, more varied equipment options, more cameos by various Marvel Universe characters, and more mini-bosses. While some of the first game's characters like Magma or Psylocke are missing and others like Beast or Emma Frost only appear as non-player characters, there are plenty of new options to keep you busy. I particularly liked the ability to play as some of the villains, which satisfies some dark desire we all seem to have.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the "More! More! More!" philosophy is the huge number of super powers you can now acquire. The powers spread out across a range of uses, such as long-range attacks, buffs to strengthen allies, de-buffs to weaken enemies, damage over time attacks, area-of-effect damage, melee attacks, traps, and a few unique effects like flight or teleportation. These abilities are largely unique to each character, though I'd be hard pressed to explain meaningful differences between some of them, like Bishop's Bio Beam and Cyclops's Optic Beam. Still, I constantly found myself switching characters in and out of my party just to try them out and to break up the constant slugfest. The extremely well-balanced Nightcrawler, however, remained my number one go-to guy for pretty much the entire game and was just brutally powerful towards the end.
