X-Men: Destiny Critic Reviews

Silicon Knights may not be treading into its Eternal Darkness territory here, but at least it's steering clear of its Too Human regime. This Destiny's got some weight behind it.

I stopped having "true fun" about halfway through X-Men: Destiny and sadly finished out of obligation and a curiosity to see how the story would unfold. Hopefully, if you're a bigger fan of the X-Men franchise than I am you'll have a better time. Casual gamers should probably skip – this is one for true X-Men aficionados.

Add in some middling environment and character visuals on top of the lackluster gameplay, and X-Men Destiny has some big problems.

The action is fun, if not monotonous, and there is simply nothing special about it at all. Still, I had fun the entire time I was playing the game, and that speaks volumes in my book.

There's no reason to play it, but it is not actively bad the way that some games are. It simply exists to kill time, and to make you think of the six thousand ways it could be better.

Unfortunately it feels like Silicon Knights wrote the story on the back of a cocktail napkin and employed absolutely zero imagination in building the enemies we'd be facing.

X-Men: Destiny feels like a demo for a bigger game that never was. Little of the excitement that could have followed in the booted footsteps of X-Men Legends or Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is buried within its too-short campaign and thin smattering of gameplay. It's Dynasty Warriors for mutants; it can be fun at the outset, even with all the button-mashing, but the boxed-in world is not enough to distract from the hollow feeling of this particular destiny.

We expected so much more.

Even for an action brawler, this one is as mindless as they come.

The good news for beat-'em-up fans is that the combat is fast, furious, and mostly satisfying. The bad news is that repetitive enemy types, lack of cooperative play, and confining levels are decidedly not. Even on the hardest difficulty setting, you'll beat the game within seven hours.

Small annoyances like low quality environments and repeating enemy models may deter some players. One bright spot is the dialog, written by longtime comic book writer Mike Casey.

The premise is full of universe-expanding potential, but ultimately, it's undermined by mind-numbing gameplay.

Despite a few interesting game mechanics and Mike Carey's writing, X-Men Destiny is a pale adventure with no challenge whatsoever and really outdated visuals. Fans of the franchise would rather play as one of their beloved heroes or villains instead of a generic super kid, that's for sure.

The new adventure of the X-Men is poor and simple. Although the story looked interesting, the result is an average action game, without anything remarkable, that only hardcore X-Men fans will enjoy.

Some boss battles are absolutely thrilling, and the plot, while somewhat convoluted, definitely feels like a proper X-Men story, but the dull, monotonous battles and lack of polish hamstring the game.

X-Men: Destiny isn't a bad game -- it just plays like an unfinished one.

If you can swallow the pad-mashing mechanics and wince your way through Silicon Knights' ham-fisted attempts at delivering back-story, there's a certain satisfaction to be had replaying to unlock new suits and powers.

A disappointing game, with interesting premises but with a boring gameplay and underdeveloped RPG elements.

Overall, X-Men Destiny is a game you should avoid. It has little in the way of redeeming qualities and other than racking up some relatively easy Xbox Achievements or PlayStation Trophies, X-Men Destiny comes across as an unfinished product that will likely hit bargain bins come boxing day. Sadly, Silicon Knights' slump continues on.

A straightforward 5-6 hours action game with very tiny RPG elements. Even a true fan on the X-Men series should think twice about buying this.