Last year’s Iron Man movie was a phenomenal hit with comic book nerds and general movie audiences alike – the video game adaptation…not so much. In fact, it’s widely considered as one of the worst games of this generation.

Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news about the game’s newly released sequel. While the formula has been tweaked and improved from the last forgettable outing, sadly these improvements are all lost amidst horrible presentation and shoddy gameplay. To put it simply, Iron Man 2 is just a bit less terrible than its predecessor.

Like most comic book and movie video games, Iron Man 2 isn’t a strict adaptation; it’s more of a one-shot tale.  Here, we find Iron Man and War Machine (both instantly playable this go-round) searching for a stolen copy of the Jarvis AI (Tony Stark’s robot Butler..think of it as a more badass Rosie from the Jetsons). It’s kind of a cool story, and there are some cool turns but it all just feels so uninspired. It’s a shame that the game’s story is this sub-par, as Matt Fraction, the Eisner Award winning scribe of The Invincible Iron Man crafted some impressively witty dialogue but it all just seems to get lost here. Part of the reason behind that is the majority of the main characters aren’t played by their Hollywood counterparts, instead they’re played by impersonators – bad ones. Sure, there are a few gems in here, like Samuel L. Jackson giving life to Nick Fury, but it’s forgettable when you’ve got a bad Scarlett Johansson impersonator doing a bad impression of Natasha as she chases that darn Moose and Squirrel.

"The core flight mechanics are actually quite fun..."

Undoubtedly, the biggest improvement from the original Iron Man game to the sequel is the re-worked flying mechanics. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re still incredibly awkward and clumsy, but they’re at least better than the last game.  The core flight mechanics are actually quite fun, and you’ll have a blast zooming around the sky, but there’s some trouble when you have to turn around or are locking on enemies.

The majority of Iron Man 2’s gameplay revolves around zipping through battlefields and shooting high powered weaponry at mechs until they explode. I’m usually all for games with huge enemies, but here, it all seems – each boss battle is the same action and almost the same animations, it gets a bit boring. One of the ways to break up the monotony is to customize your weaponry in Tony Stark’s lab. This is undoubtedly one of the game’s coolest aspects, as each change you make not only effects how you play through the game, but your character’s looks as well.

One of the bullet points in the Iron Man 2 press release is that by choosing Iron Man or War Machine, you can play out the levels however you want, whether it is with firepower or melee. I’m here to tell you that you’re going to want to use firepower as much as you can because the melee combat in Iron Man 2 is one of the worst systems I’ve played in quite some time.  First off, your move set is excruciatingly limited, meaning you’re going to see the same animation over and over. Couple that with a practically broken target system and you’ve got one frustrating game.

"Iron Man is supposed to be a technical marvel; but this game is the complete opposite."

Visually, some of the character’s likenesses are dead on and some are quite weird looking (Robert Downey JR being on the higher end, Scarlett Johansson on the lower) but the animations and environments are a bit lacking when compared to other games.  The worst part is the slowdown that literally grinds the game to a halt when the action gets even slightly frantic. Iron Man is supposed to be a technical marvel; but this game is the complete opposite.

Perhaps the biggest question I had after playing through Iron Man 2, was –why no multiplayer? It makes perfect sense – there are two main characters to choose from, and at times they even interact with each other….why limit it to one player? How cool would it be to strategize with a friend over Xbox Live about which upgrades you’ll use on your suit to take down the next boss. Also, there could be time trials or races or gauntlet modes, it just feels like Sega dropped the ball when it comes to game modes.

As both a comic book fan and a gamer, I wanted desperately to love Iron Man 2, but sadly it’s only a slight improvement over its terrible predecessor. Almost everything Sega promised would be improved – hasn’t been, leading to Iron Man 2 being just another movie game. Unless you’re really a fan of the Iron Man license, you’re going to want to save your money and skip Iron Man 2.