This game is the only game in 6 years that got me off of Apex Legends (which I've got about 5000hrs in). It scratches the same itch but better. It has its' flaws, but at the end of the day it's a really fun, polished, innovative, and visually pleasing game. So for me, it's an easy 9 out of 10 on the multiplayer game scale.

It's greatest weakness is ranked matchmaking and a toxic community, so it can be rough at times... To be fair, it gets a better in higher elos, but still I'm ngl it can be pretty rough at times. However, almost every multiplayer FPS/TPS I've played has it's own set of matchmaking issues. I dealt with Apex matchmaking for 6 years and ifykyk, Apex matchmaking is absolute cheeks, but I still sunk 5k hours into it. So, if you enjoy the core mechanics of the game, you'll always find a way to have fun.

Ranked can be fun but also rage inducing. Ranked is where I spend 75% of my time in game. I like many others also get heated (Not on comms lol. Pro tip... Mute VC unless you're in GM and up). While I do play to win, I also can be happy when I lose a hard fought match and did my best. Most people that flame this game mindlessly don't understand it's okay to lose sometimes, and it's okay when you need to, to take a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ break from Ranked. It's okay to go play quickplay, or arcade/PVE modes, or another game, or god forbid touch grass. Some people just can't accept there are always going to be some matches you just can't win no matter how hard you carry. And yeah the matchmaking can sometimes be to blame, but if you're consistently at a 40-45% win rate across all seasons/heros, then I've got news for ya big dawg... It's probably not the game's fault.

I'll also admit, the hero kits are a bit over-tuned between DPS/Supports, mainly their ults. And poor Tanks have not been and are not currently in the healthiest spot. Netease is slowly fixing this with new heros and buffs/nerfs but it not an overnight remedy. But at least for the over-tuning/power creep/big fancy OP ults... I think it's done that way to give the game that classic large scale cinematic and epic style battle format/visual effect that we see in Marvel comics and movies. That's part of the appeal even if it makes balancing a little tougher.

But overall, seeing all these hero's (and villan's) powers come to life in the palm of your hands totally makes me feel like a kid again. Placing a game winning Strange portal, charging into battle as Cap and screaming AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, squishing support ults with Magneto's meatball, being able to play as Rocket Racoon and use a minigun to one clip a literal God like Thor. You literally get to be a space rodent with a gun the size of your body that can kill the God of Thunder. What more could I ask for lol?!?! It's everything I wanted other Marvel games to be but they never were. Finally a well polished format where you can actually just be in the shoes of that hero and utilize their unique abilities with no major compromises. And since Rivals came out it reignited my interest in rewatching the MCU and reading the original comics. It has become such a great source of entertainment/content.

I did not enjoy playing Overwatch 1 or 2. But I very much respect the inspiration and framework it gave to help Rivals exist/succeed, and no doubt they do a lot of things better in OW. But they've also had a decade to flush out meta balancing and QOL features. I'm not sure what it is personally, but I don't have fun in OW. However, I can't drop Marvel Rivals and it's not just because it has Marvel's IP.

Just to list a few more things... The devs do listen to the community, like actually listen. The devs make sure to give lots of fan service, they clearly read the Rivals reddit forums, they adopt fan/player art/skins designs into the game, and they're just more engaged with the community than what I'm used to for FPS/TPS games. I must admit it's very refreshing. Additionally, compared to any other game I've played with microtransactions, Rivals is by far the most generous in free currency/items/events. More generous by A LOT! I'm not endorsing microtransactions and expensive cosmetics, but its a free to play game, business is gonna business. So, even though the bar is pretty low, they give a lot of chances to enjoy the game entirely for free and still give out quite a few chances every season to get complimentary skins/emotes/currency/etc. I'm also a big fan of the entire game's layout and design. The menus/in game UI/replay and highlight features/stat tracking/etc. All of it is so well done. Apex still doesn't have even half these features after 6 years. Apex doesn't even have full match history/replay/highlight system, or an in game competitive/tournament tab, or character mastery system (like Lords). Just to name a few. My point is the game released with 40ish something heros and all of these great features already in place. Maybe Apex just abused me over the years with awful updates, lack of features/QOL, and predatory microtransactions. Rivals feels like a paradise by comparison.

But... If you don't care about any of that, I got two words for ya... Gooner Skins. Lots of them! Go forth and enjoy them my fellow degenerates.

And if the gooner skins don't sell you just look at Jeff the Landshark's emotes for a few minutes and that stupid adorable face might make you wanna give it a chance.

There's so much I love about this game and I have too many hours to say I don't recommend it. It's the only FPS with good mechanics, it makes it hard to enjoy any other FPS. But I don't recommend supporting EA/Respawn in anyway at this point in time.

There's nothing to accommodate or encourage new players, the competitive scene is not promoted at all, new content is infrequent (unless it's paid skins/recolors), events are just virtual pop-up shops with nothing actually in game often, game modes are replaced haphazardly, they can't manage to make a good ranked system after 5 years, they pay for the lowest level of anti-cheat and the lowest tick servers, and a half laid off QA team. There's always new bugs with any update (and always have been), you will encounter cheaters in pretty much every mode (literally can't go a couple games without one); and while you face all that, prepare to face 3 pred/master dudes with 500x more commitment than you to this game and good comms. New players and solo quers never had a chance, old players are losing patience, it looks kinda bleak.

All that said, I hope that the game can be carried by some of the devs/players that do really try/care to keep the game interesting and rewarding/engaging. Say what you will about Fortnite (I'm not a fan personally), but they get a lot of content and stable gameplay, and Fortnite does have expensive shops too, but atleast there's a lot of options and creativity. Apex's shop has been stale for a long time despite it being the thing EA/Respawn obviously cares about the most.

I'll stop playing entirely if they don't bring back Duos. Even if they do though my relationship with this game is slowly dying. I'll probably end up just watching pro/competitive Apex and stop playing except occasionally, at least watching it is the one part of the game that never gets stale for me.

I don't think the game is dead or even dying quite yet... but it's like a small infection that will keep spreading, Nobody at EA/Respawn seems to want to pay for the "antibiotics". I hope we can find some balance to their greed if we have to live with it, they can at least repay us with content updates and stable servers.

In summary, I do love this game. BUT capitalism and the board of EA just want to milk this baby for the short-term profits, there's no way around it besides not financially supporting them if you agree their practices are predatory.

GREAT PRODUCT!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥ BUSINESS!!!