Marvel Rivals

[h3]When Marvel Rivals is fun, it is VERY fun. [/h3] However I do need to talk about the cons about this game, because they're the reasons I'm even writing this review. The balancing in this game is just awful. The devs clearly know there is a problem of no one wanting to play vanguard, but instead of incentivising the players to play tank they make the tanking an awful experience. [list] [*]The fun tanks get nerfed. Duelists and strategists get the team ups instead of tanks (we get the anchor bonus, whee), [*]The game has a lot of CC abilities. Guess who gets targeted? [*]The game keeps launching with broken new characters after every new season. Daredevil took a while to get nerfed and Elsa barely got nerfed. [*] Inconsistent balancing. We went from characters like Captain America being one of the worst tanks in the game at launch, to being kinda ok, to being really good for maybe a week or two during season 2 before they emergency nerfed him, to being bad again this season from removing his animation cancel. [*]Then there's the issue with support ults. This is partly rectified with the ult charge nerf this season, but Gambit's ult is still overloaded. There's a reason even after the "nerfs" he's still being banned in competitive play. [/list] For other issues: [list] [*]Reporting in this game does very little. You can report someone for throwing competitive games or being toxic and the devs will maybe hand them out a 15 minute ban. [*]There has been a very obvious drop in quality in the seasonal battle passes. The last pass I have bought was Season 4. The devs have been pushing more and more of the event passes instead and some of them even have gacha mechanics. [*] EOMM. It's a hotly debated topic on whether NetEase even uses EOMM, but they did invest time and money into developing an EOMM system. Whether or not the Marvel Rivals uses their system or not, best to make your own judgement after some research. [*]Special mention to the game's performance. I have to run Marvel Rivals on low settings with DLSS in Performance mode. [/list]

Marvel Rivals is a game that I am sad to write a negative review about, It's a game I've spent hundreds of hours in and can genuinely say I love. However the current state of the game makes it near impossible to endorse. Between new heroes being released with kits 3x the size of their base game counterparts and what might be one of the WORST matchmaking systems I have ever seen, it makes it increasingly difficult to get back on - like returning to the game after a 3 week break and immediately getting stomped in quick play by someone FAR beyond my competitive skill ranking. There's no reason I as a Platinum 2 player should be subjected to lobbies filled with Grandmaster 3's and Celestial 2's and above, it makes the gameplay loop feel unrewarding and honestly unfair. Adding insult to injury by forcing players in loss streaks into bot lobbies that feel horrible to play, only to be tossed right back into outranked lobbies because the player team steam rolls the bots. You can say it's a skill issue but with matchmaking rank gaps so large it makes it difficult to continue playing a game I once played daily. I honestly and genuinely hope NetEase can figure out their issues before more players like myself come to their wits end and the game suffers as a result. I would hate to see the horrendous matchmaking system be the ultimate downfall to what is otherwise and incredibly fun and engaging game.