CMON Games and Spin Master are now on Kickstarter with their new chibi-take on the Marvel universe with the cooperative experience, Marvel United. Let's take a peek at this rather expansive new option for superhero fans.

The game, unsurprisingly, has you playing as a team of heroes from the Marvel universe who are looking to thwart the schemes of an evil villain. In the core game, you'll be able to play as Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow, Captain America and Captain Marvel and face off against the villains Red Skull, Taskmaster and Ultron.

However, if you're going to dive in and check out the Kickstarter United Pledge then you'll also get access to Nick Fury, Hawkeye and the villain Corvus Glaive.

At $60 this isn't actually as big of a money pit as I thought it was going to be. With the added extras that the team has unlocked via Kickstarter already, this is a pretty impressive package for the price of a standard board game. Even though you've got a lot of miniatures for the heroes and main villains a lot of the content is simply done using cards and tokens which is refreshing for a CMON Kickstarter game.

Here is a look at the additional extras they have unlocked so far (at the time of writing)...

So, as it stands we've got a new enemy in the rather fun Bullseye and then a set of well-known characters like Ms Marvel, Warmachine, Black Cat, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. You've also got some lesser-known characters to play as with Moon Knight and Mockingbird who will certainly get the attention of some major Marvel fans.

Face The Mad Titan

As well as that core pledge and the unlocked options you can also go for a Kickstarter Exclusive expansion in the form of The Infinity Gauntlet.

This expands on your experience with Marvel United and provides you with an almost campaign-style experience where you have to battle against the three members of The Black Order before you face off against Thanos himself.

During your games against The Black Order, you'll be looking to stop them finding the Infinity Stones which Thanos is looking to add to his gauntlet. As you fight through these missions you'll be working up to a final climactic battle against Thanos himself where you'll have to use your skills in order to take down a very deadly and difficult foe.

Marvel United Gameplay

So, now you've seen the options we can talk about actually playing the game. The basics of Marvel United are wrapped around the cooperative card play by your team. Each turn you'll play a card in which allows you to beat up thugs, threats (either minor villains or something else), rescue civilians and complete missions.

The core difference here is that as well as being able to activate the abilities on your card, you can also use the actions of a previous heroes card too. This means that the order in which you play cards is very important and will be the difference between aiding your allies and failing to act as a team.

The villain also plays a card after every three hero turns (or two once you start to press the advantage) and this will activate certain areas of the game space, either allowing villains to hurt your heroes or push forward nefarious plans. The heroes win by defeating the main villain and the villain, in turn, wins by defeating heroes and advancing their schemes.

There is a timer in the game based on your hand of cards and the villain's deck so it should go at quite the pace. I am pretty impressed by the gameplay mechanics proposed by CMON and I could see this being a lot of fun as you change up the heroes, locations and villains between games.

There are a lot of options for Marvel fans right now so choose which appeals to you. If you want to keep things cheap and cheerful then maybe invest in the puzzle-solving nature of things then try the cooperative card game, Marvel: Champions. If you like the hobby side of things then consider Marvel: Crisis Protocol. If you're looking for a mix of the two (if you like painting board game pieces) with a little bit of a casual edge then maybe this game, Marvel United, is for you.

A Worthwhile Investment?

As a final note, I am concerned about the number of heroes and the expansion which are going to be Kickstarter Exclusive. It would have been nice to have them added as options here for 'free' to backers but then available later on down the line at retail for those looking to expand the game piece-by-piece. For the buy-in of $60 right now, it's actually pretty enticing and good value for money thanks to the replay value generated by the mechanics but maybe it will just be one of those games which lands in an overwhelming heap when it delivers next year. That judgement of course, is entirely down to the individual.

What do you make of the game and its campaign?