The events are somewhat closely based on the 2006 Civil War storyline, which was also the basis for the 2016 Captain America sequel film of the same name. Ultimate Alliance 2, on the other hand, tells a much more ambitious story. As an excuse to get a bunch of different heroes and villains together, though, it works. Doom is up to no good, and it's your job to stop him.
Doom has reassembled the Masters of Evil and leveraged their abilities and resources to gain a powerful artifact ─ I'm going to stop right there, because you can already guess how this story goes. In the case of Ultimate Alliance, it's unfortunately toward the "worse" end of the spectrum. The stories themselves are also classic Marvel crossover events, for better or worse. Marvel, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, Wolverine, the Fantastic Four, Jean Grey, Elektra and Black Panther are all present and accounted for. While the 25 or so characters per game wonꞌt include everyoneꞌs favorite, youꞌre almost guaranteed to find four that you like. Thereꞌs no dearth of quality action/RPGs out there, so why play Ultimate Alliance over, say, Diablo or Torchlight? Well, the playable characters themselves, for one thing. Between secret characters to unlock, alternate costumes to find and multiple story paths to complete, theyꞌre perfect for multiple playthroughs, too. The Ultimate Alliance games arenꞌt deep, but they are compulsively playable. If youꞌve seen Iron Man bounce his repulsor off Captain Americaꞌs shield or Colossus hurl Wolverine at an enemy in the comics, you can accomplish the same thing in-game. Ultimate Alliance 2 takes the formula one step further by giving certain hero combinations Fusion Powers. Trying to figure out how the characters justified teaming up will be almost as much fun as playing through the game.) Just pick whichever characters you want, and see what combination you end up with. (Hereꞌs a tip: If you can get four friends together, donꞌt try to coordinate a team.
If you have a group of friends who also loves Marvel, it’s easy to sink hours into couchside co-op. Nothing feels radically different between the prologue mission and the final boss, but seeing your characters get stronger and learn new special abilities is gratifying. Putting together your dream team of Marvel heroes is pretty much its own reward, but once you do, the gameplay is rock solid from start to finish.