If you are a family obsessed with Marvel, you are definitely going to want to check out this game! Marvel United is a brand new, completely cooperative family game where you’ll battle villains and try to thwart their evil schemes. 

In our home, Marvel super heroes are a big deal. Opening the box, discovering it full of adorable miniatures, and getting to take part in an epic storyline battle against their favorite foes pretty much put our kids over the moon!

This is a review for the base game of Marvel United. This is not a review of the Kickstarter content that backers of Marvel United will be getting next year in 2021. This review is just of the base game available in major retail stores. 

What is Marvel United? 

Marvel United is a cooperative game where players will work together to stop and defeat a super villain controlled by the game. In order to win you must rescue Civilians, defeat Thugs, clear Threats, and stop the Villain’s evil scheme. If you fail, and the villain completes their master plan, all heroes lose.

How do you play?

You play Marvel United by using cards to build a storyline. These cards allow you to move your heroes around the city, saving civilians and attacking foes. The villain also has their own set of cards that are played into the storyline. These advance their evil plan.

The game begins with the villain taking their turn. You flip over the top card from the Master Plan deck and place it face up on the table, thus beginning the storyline. Each villain card has different elements that players will execute in order from top to bottom. First you’ll move the villain the a number of location spaces equal to the number on the card, triggering any threat effects at that happen when they arrive at their new location.

Then you activate the Bam effect on the villain dashboard. These can impact your heroes as the villain makes their lives more difficult and potentially deals players damage.

Then you add thugs and/or civilians as indicated to the nearby spaces. Any special effects on the master plan card will be resolved last. 

Hero’s Turn!

Once the villain goes, it’s then the heroes turn to respond. Each turn, you’ll do the following steps in order, 

Draw a Card
Play a Card
Resolve Actions
Location Effect

In clockwise order, each player takes their turn. When you play a card you add it to the storyline on the table next to the last card played. Cards will never be picked back up. Once played, they are gone from your hand for good. 

When you resolve your actions, you’ll take the actions on the card you played, and combine them with the actions of the card played on the hero card if played previously to your card. This means that heroes are able to work together as a team to UNITE their abilities. (Get it???)

After every 3 hero cards are played, you’ll play another villain card into the Storyline, interrupting the heroes teamwork and potentially causing a change of plans. The villain’s card is added, resolved, and then the next player takes their turn.

Missions

Much like any hero team you have some missions you need to accomplish before you can take down the main villain.

Before you can attack the villain, you need to complete 2 of your three missions before you can attack the villain. Your missions include: Rescuing Civilians, Defeating Thugs, and Clearing Threats. These can be completed in any order. 

As you complete your first mission, the villain becomes aggravated with your heroics, and you’ll begin adding a new villain card to the Storyline after every two hero cards are played. You’ll continue the game in this way until either you or the villain wins.

What Do We Think?

Super heroes are often marketed directly at children, but in many cases, the main elements that they want to take part in, are just out of their reach maturity or developmentally wise. For example, our son is in love with all things Marvel and will frequently flip through all of our Marvel Legendary cards, but for the time being, the game is beyond his abilities, both from a reading stand point and a mechanic stand point. And this is to say nothing of the movies which are often not the most family friendly.

Enter Marvel United.

Targeted directly at families with children, this game does not disappoint. I love that it is something we can all play together! There’s a very low barrier to entry making this a great gateway game. There’s also very little reading required. Each card has great iconography so early or pre-readers will be able to interpret the majority of their cards, and because the entire game is fully cooperative, (meaning there is no traitor and everyone is working together,) you do not have to have any hidden information and can ask your teammates for help if you need it.

The game plays quickly too, which I really enjoy from a family perspective. Each game takes about 30-45 minutes, less if you are all adults and able to keep your turns tight. For a lighter game like this, it truly plays in the perfect time frame. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and everyone stays invested in the gameplay. 

While light, I think the game play is perfect for how this game plays and feels. It’s welcoming for players young and old, easy to learn for players who may only have experience with games like Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Clue, yet is still fun for experienced gamers like Adam and myself to play with our kids or with each other. Sometimes you don’t want a brain burning game with a laundry list of rules to learn, you just want to set up and have some fun. Marvel United is perfect for that!

Theme

I love a super hero theme for a cooperative game! This works so well! 

Playing your cards into the “storyline” is a cute way to show the progression of the game, and much like the storyline in a comic or film, the game does a good job of speeding up, becoming more difficult as you flip villain cards more frequently as you progress towards the end of the game. 

Hopping around from city space to city space is another cute element of the theme. Moving from place to place like you would change scenes in a movie. Needing to split up and be in different locations as you work together towards your goal.

I really enjoy how the cooperation comes into play with the player cards. Because you can use the action icons on the card played before you in the storyline, you are not only thinking about how the card you play on your turn helps you, but how it can be used by the next player as well. This is kind of like how heroes help each other out when fighting a villain in the movies or comics. They do something that sets up their teammate for a great move or take down. It really works well in Marvel United.

Components

Everything in the box is really well made. I absolutely love the miniatures. They look fantastic and are so fun to play with during the game. They are cute as is, but if you love to paint, they’re ready to shine with a full paint job. 

We all really enjoy the overall design of the game and the art choices. Our kids were instantly drawn to this more chibi style art. So I am incredibly happy that it’s a game that connects with them mechanically as well as visually.

There’s a massive amount of value inside this box for the price point. These miniatures are really well made and detailed and I was surprised with how many there were in the base box, especially for $30. (Marvel United retails for $29.99 in stores)

I would have like to have seen the cardboard/cardstock location mats a little higher quality, but overall, for the price point, there’s not much to complain about here.

Replayability? 

I think the base box comes with a decent amount of content to provide a fun experience for many games. Between the 3 different villains and the 7 unique heroes, you have a wide variety of scenarios to play out. 

While each hero’s deck is similar, they do feel a bit unique and it’s always fun to play as your favorite hero. Each villain has a unique feel and can be pretty difficult to beat. You won’t win every game. We’ve had a lot of close wins and losses which make the experience fun and keeps us coming back for more, especially the kids! 

In the future, there will be expansion content to add to this which will undoubtably make the game feel more full and interesting, but from a base box perspective, I think you’ll have fun playing everything that comes inside for many games.

Summary

For families looking for a great entry level super hero game, Marvel United is definitely one to check out. With great components and welcoming gameplay, it’s fun for all ages. We appreciate that the game is easy enough mechanically that kids as young as 6 can play on their own with little to no help, giving them the valuable experience of independence in a game that feels large scale. 

While on the light side for strategy and mechanics, I think it all works really well and creates a fun atmosphere during play. Marvel United is a game the whole family can enjoy playing together which is, at the end of the day, the most important.

We recommend Marvel United to any superhero loving family. This is especially a great birthday or Christmas gift for any kid who loves these heroes!

Find Marvel United and all our favorite games for the home on our Amazon Storefront!

Important Note:
The Walmart version of this game includes the Venom character rather than Wasp. All other retail copies of the base game will come with the Wasp character inside. 

A special thanks to our good friends at SpinMaster Games for sending us a copy of Marvel United for review. As always, our thoughts and opinions are our own. 

Game Info:
Title: Marvel United
2-4 Players Ages 8+
Designer: Andrea Chiarvesio, Eric M. Lang
Artist: Edouard Guiton
Publisher: Spinmaster & CMON Games

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