Last week, Crystal Dynamics released the Future Imperfect DLC for Marvel’s Avengers. This update included Hawkeye (Clint Barton) as a new playable character, a new storyline, and some new explorable areas and repeatable content. So, how is it? Is it worth it jumping back into the game for this update?

Note: this post contains minor storyline spoilers.

The Good

First off, Hawkeye himself is a treat to play. Instead of being a direct copy of the previous Hawkeye added to the game (Kate Bishop), his moves and abilities are (for the most part) totally unique. He contains a decent amount of utility in his combat kit, and he’s very agile in his movements. (Traversal in general could use some work, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

The Future Imperfect patch is easily the biggest one yet for Marvel’s Avengers. It includes some much-requested features, including a customizable HARM (training) room, and the ability to replay the base game campaign. In addition, the new villain added to the game, Maestro, has his own repeatable villain sectors and is a treat to fight. A fun new Major Artifact, the Void-Tech Transponder, which can summon Hank Pym to the battlefield when upgraded. These are all steps (albeit, small ones) in the right direction for the longevity of the game.

The Not-So-Good

I’ll cut to the chase: the main storyline is not good. At best, it’s middling in quality. Picking up from where Kate Bishop’s story left off, it’s short and hand-wavy. It doesn’t do much to resolve the existing lingering questions, yet introduces several more (why was Taskmaster still alive in the bad future?). When I finished fighting the end boss, I was left asking, “That’s it?”

The best content in the update comes after the main story: the villain sectors. However, at the time of this writing, they are still bugged (as in, they are inconsistent about showing up for players), and they don’t contribute true endgame content to the game. They are fun, but not the kind of content that requires strong teamwork and coordination like similar games.

One final thing that stood out to me: the storyline starts off with the player controlling a future version of Clint, Old Man Hawkeye. After completing the first map, the player is brought back to the present-day Hawkeye… and if they want to play as Old Man Hawkeye again, they have to pay for a skin. It felt kind of rude to allow a player to be Old Man Hawkeye, only to take him away almost immediately.

Conclusion

Despite the relatively mediocre patch, I do still have high hopes for this game. The recently-revealed roadmap seems to indicate that the developers are nowhere near done with making content. I’ll be playing it as long as they continue to make it.

Thanks for reading. If you want to read my terrible opinions about other media, you can check out the review tag.