Marvel Rivals arrived with one hell of an impact, but as the dust has cleared, some of its glaring flaws are now apparent. The lack of a role queue is a major omission and is already making effective team play impossible when playing with strangers. Unless you want to switch to a Vanguard or Strategist on your own to save a struggling game, you will end up losing.
This is a problem in Overwatch 2, but role queuing has made it much easier to form teams that you know have a good chance of winning if you work together. No Limits asks you to put all that aside for chaotic fun where emerging victorious doesn't matter. But in Marvel Rivals this is the only way to play, so it's impossible not to criticize. Right now, I spend games as support out of obligation, preventing me from trying other heroes.
Marvel Rivals should have taken more time with its roster
NetEase has created a hero shooter using one of the largest licenses in the world in a free-to-play format that people will want to jump in and play as some of their favorite heroes without restrictions. They aren't interested in playing them well or trying to learn what their skills do or the role they fill. The goal is to look and feel as cool as possible in as little time as possible, a fantasy of power that sadly isn't possible in a game that requires mechanical knowledge like this.
You can make it in single-player experiences like Spider-Man or Batman: Arkham Asylum, but in those games there's no expectation of performing alongside a team. The only thing you compete for is your own gratification. Marvel Rivals is different and makes a game that looks so amazing and so great to play have a skill cap that ruins a lot of its power fantasy right from the start. Those who play for aesthetic reasons just to accomplish what is required of them will immediately leave, but perhaps they wouldn't if Rivals was a little more mediated in its launch. From day one, it has been absolutely packed with content.
His blistering launch makes me question his future
Even during the beta period, the roster was filled with an impressive number of playable heroes and villains to choose from. In the run-up to its full launch, further additions to the roster were confirmed, making it difficult to determine who I would lead and whether I would have enough time to learn all their details before release. Turns out I didn't, and now the simple act of playing Marvel Rivals is daunting. Once again, I find myself comparing it unfavorably to Overwatch.
Overwatch launched with 21 heroes, while Rivals launched with 33, just 11 fewer than Overwatch 2 has now. Since it's not an original universe, it has decades of media to draw from when it comes to its roster. But that also means there's less potential for future additions, and some of its biggest names can't be exploited because they've been here the whole time. For the first few years of its existence, Overwatch made every new hero a legitimate event. You would follow every update and tease with fervent anticipation, waiting to find out exactly what role they might play and what they would look like.
That won't happen when Rivals adds Sentry. Each new hero was unexpected, but for Rivals it seems like we're already having to temper our expectations after NetEase teased its A-listers.
I may be proven wrong, but right now I'm not too excited about new heroes coming to Marvel Rivals because we're already dealing with an overblown roster. There is no moderation and there is a desire to give players a fantasy of temporary power instead of making things easier for them. This will only hurt the game in the long run, and feeling that way right now is not a good sign.
