OK, these aren’t all personal favorites, but I’ve thought a lot about what a more satisfying roster would be, assuming realistic roster sizes and character restrictions (No Punisher)
Initial Free Play
Beast
Human Torch
Invisible Woman
Iron Fist
She-Hulk
Spider-Man
Storm
Thing
Wolverine
Pro-reg
Iron Man
Mr. Fantastic
Ms. Marvel
Ant-reg
Captain America
Luke Cage
Spider-Woman
Story Unlockable
Black Panther
Cyclops
Daredevil
Deadpool
Dr. Strange
Emma Frost
Item Unlockable
Ghost Rider
Hulk
Thor
Pre-order Bonus:
Hawkeye/ Ronin
I thought the T-bolts were kind of limited as a team, and didn’t think the game did much to sell them as characters or as a team. I’ve largely substituted them with B-list solo heroes who took part in Civil War and have served on various Avengers related teams. In my fantasy universe, the classic Thunderbolts are heavily pushed as Antagonists and NPCs in the game (Zemo takes the place of Fury as the mastermind behind and ultimate leader of the fold), with the “Faith in Monsters” team as the focus of the first expansion pack. I made all the side-locked characters returning, since I felt having to unlock the new characters took too much focus off of them. Ghost Rider rounds out the trinity of unlockables who didn’t fit with the Civil War story, instead of Jean, since he’s well known to casual fans and should be something of a *ahem* demon in melee combat.
I realize Jean’s omission is controversial, but I still feels like she’s just too much of an X-centric (eccentric?) character for a game that has little to do with mutants. I’ve filled the X-men’s spots with the current AXM team. Aside from being the most omnipresent mutant team in the comics, Scott’s pretty much the spokesperson for the X-men in the MU, and Wolverine, Storm, Hank, and Emmma all have ties to other characters that makes them good for team building. 3 of them were in the last X-men movie, and all five were prominent cast members in the “Wolverine and the X-men” toon. Besides, in my fantasy alternate reality, the 2nd DLC pack consists entirely of classic X-men, with Jean as a major selling point.
Dr. Strange is the replacement for Nano-Fury, since he should be ridiculously powerful, his abiliites allow him the widest range of power and damage types, and it’s canon for him not to get involved until after the war is over.
Hawkeye’s kind of a self-indulgent pick, I admit, since I don’t know how many casual fans would pre-order the game just for him. On the other hand, maybe there’s a wisdom in making the pre-order character a cult favorite, since casual fans might not follow the game closely enough to know about the pre-order. He’s a fun character who’s obviously still got a lot of fans, and he’d round out the Classic and New Avengers teams.
