Marvel United

Today's review is of the 2020 release, Marvel United. For 1-4 players, it takes 30 minutes.

Overview

A supervillain is loose! It's up to you and your team (this is a cooperative game) to stop him by reducing his life points to zero. But before you can attack him directly, you must do two of the three:

- clear 4 threats (of 6 on the board)

- rescue 9 civilians

- defeat 9 thugs

Can you do these things, and defeat the villain, before it's too late?

Marvel United is a deck-based game. The villain (and each of the players) have decks of cards that determine actions. After setup (placing the villain's main card; laying out 6 locations, placing one threat and the shown number of civilians/thugs on each; placing the heroes and villain), turns proceed as follows:

- reveal the top card of the villain's deck and do what's stated (generally, moving the villain to a new location, placing thugs and/or civilians  in different locations, or doing other nefarious things)

- hero 1 draws the top card of their hero deck (their starting hand has 3 cards), chooses a card to play, places it on the timeline, and carries out the action[s] on the card in any order. Actions can damage thugs, rescue civilians, move the hero, or have other effects

- hero 2 follows suit, though they may carry out the action[s] on both their card and the one prior

- hero 3 does the same, using his and hero 2's actions

- the next card of the villain deck is revealed

- hero 4 takes their turn, using their and hero 3's actions

And so on. Turns continue with three hero turns for every villain turn until a certain point, where the villain gets to go after every two hero turns. Play continues until the villain is defeated OR the heroes lose by the villain satisfying a stated condition on their main card, or the heroes running out of cards to play.

game in progress; image from here

Review

This is a great game! My son got it for his birthday, and we've played it quite a bit. This main box has 3 villains and 6 heroes (and 8 locations), giving plenty of possibilities. It's quick to learn and fast to play. The challenge level is just right (neither to hard nor too easy; we win only about half of the time). There are meaningful choices, and cooperation is important. My only wish is that the distribution would be better- this game was on kickstarter with lots of expansions. You can now buy the base game in retail, but not the expansions- you'll pay a heavy price for those on ebay. With so many characters in the Marvel universe, it feels like this base game is just giving us a tease. If only the expansions were more readily available. That aside, check this one out. I'm not sure why it's rated 14+; my 9-year-old picked it up just fine, and my 6-year-old gets the gist, too.

Rating: A