Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of LEGO Marvel Avengers. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

I've been telling myself for months now that there's no need for a LEGO Marvel Avengers game. We already have LEGO Marvel Superheros, which not only includes Marvel's biggest names, but a remarkable supporting cast as well. Then I played it. If you're at all a fan of the Avengers movies, the LEGO equivalent will win you over with it's charm and personality, which it has in spades. Be glad for that though because LEGO Marvel Avengers plays like every LEGO game before it and at this point, the well hasn't just run dry, it's a drought. You'll likely have fun with LEGO Marvel Avengers but it's a fun that you've more than likely already had.

If you played any of the previous LEGO games, save for maybe last year's phenomenal LEGO Dimensions you know the drill here. Control LEGO versions of your favorite Avengers heroes and smash literally everything in sight. This time around the formula is applied to not only both Avengers movies, but a few of the recent standalone movies as well like Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Solider, and that's really part of the problem. Developer Traveler's Tales has handled multiple movies before in great games like LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones but for some reason here story beats aren't handled in order and if you haven't seen the source material, you're likely to be lost quickly. The game starts for instance with the action packed opening of last year's Avengers: Age of Ultron and then goes on to a few different movies.

Luckily, it's not that hard to enjoy LEGO Marvel Avengers because it's just so damn cute. This is the Avengers boiled down to it's most basic and then covered with a nice shine of kid safety gloves. Character deaths are either made goofy (one character dies as a result of being crushed…by ice cream) or just completely glossed over. There are the usual in-jokes here so if you're playing with your kids, be ready to laugh at some things you're kids likely won't get, especially at the expense of Hawkeye, man does this game pick on Hawkeye a lot. Do these jokes get old after more than seven games that have the same mentality? Of course, but you're still going to have fun in the meantime.

I have a feeling that if this game came before last year's LEGO: Marvel Super Heroes, I might have enjoyed it a lot more. As someone who loved the Avengers movies, I got a kick out of the way that the developers handled the source material but having the entire Marvel universe at my disposal was far more alluring. There are  few other characters thrown in here like Captain Marvel and Squirrel Girl but that fails in comparison to the roster of the previous game like Deadpool, The Fantastic Four and many more. The developers were able to be more creative, being able to create their own story lines and record their own dialogue. In LEGO Marvel Avengers though the game uses actual audio clips from the movies, which is nice enough but they repeat quite often and some of them sound very muffled for some reason.

LEGO Marvel Avengers ins't all recycled ideas though as the game does have a really cool double team move system that hasn't been seen in any of the previous games. Have two characters near each other at the right time and you could trigger a quick time event that leads to some pretty cool moments. Thor can use Hulk's shield to make his lighting burst more powerful, Hawkeye can give Black Widow a boost and by far my favorite is the way that Iron Man can make Hulk even more angry so he can, you know...Hulk smash stuff better. Finding these team moves was one of my favorite parts of playing LEGO Marvel Avengers, and it's what will likely keep me coming back to the game.

While the beginning of the game is pretty linear, LEGO Marvel Avengers quickly opens up to a rather incredible open-world experience. You'll have near full access to a LEGO Manhattan that actually takes some time to go through and you'll find that different characters are best for different situations. This is where I appreciated LEGO Avengers the most, when it let me truly explore the world it's created and see what different characters can do to it's world. Given the choice, I'll more than likely always choose Hulk, but even I was surprised how many different characters I tried, and even enjoyed using. Also, I'll give you a free hint, speedy characters like Quicksilver are best in the open world sections since they allow you to travel more land faster, but you may miss quite a few hidden easter eggs.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed my time with LEGO Marvel Avengers, perhaps even more than I thought I would. Like many of it's previous incarnations, it's a humorous and fun look at some of my favorite movies, but it's also a formula that desperately needs updating, especially after last year's superb LEGO Dimensions and LEGO Marvel Superheros before it. This is of course a great game to play with kids, and they'll love it, and don't be surprised if you do as well.