played for the first time on hard difficulty, while also using the expanded game mod for the first time. the good news is hard difficulty was a refreshing way to play this game i've played about a thousand times now, and that's coming from someone who fucking hates playing on hard difficulties. the bad news is the expanded game mod is not balanced well for hard difficulty at all. the new york city level and the second section of the time warp level are WAY too fucking hard and tedious, while the additions to act 5, specifically the 3 new bosses, are actively fucking miserable. the worst part is they aren't optional like a lot of the additions in this mod, so you either have to power through bosses that do an insane amount of damage and have an insane amount of health OR just play as an overpowered character like the galactus mod i had. i had him on my roster simply because i wanted it to be themed after the fantastic four, and i never planned as playing him, but i had to bust him out to get through these sections. i'll probably play this mod again in the future on normal difficulty to see if it's balanced better there, because i wholeheartedly cannot recommend anyone play the expanded game mod on hard. still love this modding community and it amazes me that something like the expanded game can even exist, but playing it on hard difficulty just isn't it

This was the first video game I ever played. While raven's evident enthusiasm for the source material and appealing presentation compared to other budget titles of the era are notable, Marvel Ultimate Alliance can be a somewhat entertaining romp for comic fans, and a droll slog for everyone else. Also the game is completely unbuyable anywhere thanks to a copyright dispute between activision and disney, not to mention that the "remastered" version that was available on steam for a short time is extremely slapdash and buggy.

Hasn't aged very well. The game looks terrible and extremely dated, with bleak environments. The mix of ultimate designs and classic designs for characters is a weird choice that characters such as Wolverine and Thor suffer for. But a lot of the alternate suits are nice callbacks for comic fans.

The basic gameplay is basic and repetitve. The actual good skills that are unique to each hero (and their powers) are pretty decently fun to use but often will cause energy to drain so fast that you're forced to go back to annoying melee mashing that feels extremely soulless.

The story is overall good, it is a little cheesy and the voice acting is pretty terrible (extremely over-acted) but it takes you to a variety of comic locations and lets you meet plenty of characters that you're kept invested on where you'll go next.

Overall I'd say it's worth playing if you're a fan of comic books (maybe not just the movies/shows though as quite a bit of this is oldschool obscure) but the gameplay really does drag the score down.

A great game in my head, but far from great in practice. I love marvel. I love comics. The single greatest aspect of this game was the ability to create whatever team of heroes I wanted. Although the roster was not massive, or even very large for that matter, there were still enough heroes that I spent way to much time trying to pin down my select 4. Ultimately, I landed on a four of Wolverine, Deadpool, Blade, and my main, Moon Knight. Another great aspect was the costume and power upgrades. The systems forced me, the player, to only choose a some upgrades to master and had to leave others underdeveloped.

I think a lot of the negatives of this game may just come from the era it was developed. In that middle 2000's era, games had bad camera following, repetitive combat, and a whole-lotta jank. The gameplay was tough to sit through at points just because I felt the whole time I was running around and repeatedly mashing the same combos and powers. Yeesh, it was repetitive. The jank was a little more love and hate. Jank is just a natural aspect of these older games but I enjoyed the experience, or at least I enjoyed getting done with this experience.

I enjoyed the game. Towards the end, I think I enjoyed it being over more than grinding through the finish. The gameplay was just way to repetitive. But! But the ability to build my superhero team, develop the characters, and keep learning all their strengths and abilities was one of the best features I've experienced in a game. Much better than the 2020 Avengers game and its limited roster. I would say the gameplay of these 2 are comparable, very repetitive gameplay loop, 2020 Avengers was much smoother and not just graphics but all the other modern aesthetics, but Ultimate Alliance 1 had the way better team customization and upgrade systems. I'd say both are 3's out of 5 but different 3's altogether.

Thankfully, with all the Diablos and Diablo clones out there, we got an ARPG that is different. Not better, perhaps, but at least different.
Built upon the corpses of X-Men Legends 1 & 2, Ultimate Alliance was a bright, bombastic light in the darkness cast by the aforementioned swarms of games.
Colorful and an absolute blast to play with friends or online, with some of peoples’ favorite Marvel Characters.
It’s a shame this series died with the lackluster Ultimate Alliance Civil War.
Well, until 3 came out for the Switch. I haven’t played that one yet.
I’d say you owe it to yourself to at least give this a try.