Worse than the camera, though, are the pools of lava, radiation, and other instant-kill hazards all over the place. It is terribly easy to fall off a ledge and die, especially when your character is in one of the overly long combo animations. When one player dies in this way, action stops, and both players respawn at the last checkpoint. The checkpoints are spaced fairly liberally, but it's still irritating. I much prefer the system used in LittleBIGPlanet and other similar games, where a fallen player revives when his partner reaches the next checkpoint.
Most irritating of all are some really unforgiving platforming sections. An example would be in Wolverine's campaign, with floating rocks on a sea of lava. Half of the rocks are of the "jump on 'em once and they fall" variety. This means that you and your partner have to run and jump onto them at the same exact time. Challenging, but not too bad, right? Except for one tiny thing: you and your partner can collide with each other in midair, and when you do, you both fall straight down into the lava! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I can't remember the last game I played where you could collide with another player in this way. It adds a level of difficulty and frustration that has no place in a game designed for young kids. I was getting frustrated myself, and I've been playing this sort of game for decades!
There are a few other minor and yet still irksome things about Marvel Super Hero Squad. Each campaign has a quick time event section, and these are very long, often over a dozen movements in a row. If these required just button presses, it might be okay, but many of the required moves are Wiimote waggles, which are very imprecise. Adding salt to the wound is the fact that these events take place at the end of unskippable cinematic sections. Trust me, you'll be seeing these over and over quite a bit. Another mind-boggler is the fact that heroes can hit and knock each other around, so watch out with Hulk's thunderclap, or the Thing might be knocked off to drown in lava.
Marvel Super Hero Squad does have a few redeeming qualities. The boss battles are different, composed of an arena style brawl on a raised platform. The first team to 10 points, scored via KOs or ring outs, wins. These battles are probably the best part of the game. In fact, an entire mode of the game is devoted to these arenas. Considering the flaws of the co-op campaign, I'd guess most of the enjoyment of the game will come from these fights, which support up to four players. You won't get a Smash Brothers Brawl level experience from it, but it is at least tolerable, which is more than I can say about the rest of Marvel Super Hero Squad.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
The Co-Op Experience: Team up with a friend in this kid friendly super hero game.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.