You begin as Wolverine, trying to save a new mutant, Alison. Two other mutants have abducted her - Mystique and Blob - who are trying to make her join their mutant faction, The Brotherhood of Mutants. After you save her, you play her, exploring the school grounds, and meeting other mutants. Each time you return to "Xavier's School for Higher Learning", you once again become Alison. There are many missions, such as infiltrating the HAARPA Corporation to find out what the Brotherhood is up to, or going into the sewers to take on the Morlocks and find your friend, Gambit. You soon find out that the Brotherhood has reactivated Sentinels, and plan on letting free their leader, Magneto. If they succeed, the X-Men have some big trouble on their hands.

My favorite part of this game is the large number of X-Men you can play and the many of those villains who put in an appearance. At first, you may only play Wolverine. But, as you progress, you unlock others mutants: Cyclops, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Storm, Iceman, Rogue, and Jean Gray. You also run into many enemies, all of them members of this Brotherhood of Mutants, which contains such villains as Toad, Pyro, Blob, Avalanche, and Mystique.

The game is played in an overhead 3rd-person view. Before each mission, you create a team of 4 X-Men to go through each level. You are able to switch between and control all of the X-Men on your team as opposed to merely leading them. Choose wisely though, as the levels can be very long, and Extraction Points, a place were you can exchange one of your X-Men for another are few and far between. As you play, your X-Men level up, you can teach them new moves, add clothes and armor, and boost their attack points. You want to make sure that all of your X-Men are at least 2-3 levels above or below each other, because as you move on, you will need higher-level characters as well as low, and who wants to use the same characters over and over again? Each X-Men is given the power you would expect based upon the series - such as Wolverine's claws and healing ability, Storm's weather control, Cyclops Eye Beams, or Iceman's ability to create and manipulate ice. Some of these powers are required to get through parts of a level. You may need Cyclops to weld a hole shut with his eye beam, or Iceman to create a bridge of ice to get from one point to the other, or Storm to fly her teammates across a large gap. It's all very strategic. Also, at some points in the game, you can play scenarios from the past, such as the first attack of the Sentinels and Juggernauts attack on the Xavier Mansion

The UI is good. The game tells you what to do when you need to do it, which always makes it easier to complete a task. Not much more to say about that

I love the look of this game. First off, it didn't use the look of the X-Men as you would know them in the old cartoon or comics. They decided to use the look of the comics known as Ultimate X-Men, which in my opinion is a better overall. Cell shading was definitely the way to go with this game as it not only made the game look absolutely awesome but also gave it that comic book feel. The level design, as well as the design of the Xavier Mansion, is varied and expansive. No two rooms look the same.

The difficulty is something I was unhappy with. It is simply too hard in places. Some of the enemies are very hard to take down, especially when they attack in large group. It means that often you will lose 1 or 2 of your X-Men in your first fight on a mission. The game does not allow you to carry more than 15 health restorers, which I found to be considerably too few, because you usually use a lot of them. This isn't really a problem at first, because mostly all the enemies you fight drop health, but, as you move on into higher levels, you get them less and less.

I love the voiceovers in this game. Each of them sound exactly how you would expect them to sound, from Gambit's Cajun accent, to Colossus's Russian - its all dead on. They all have their own little catchphrases they sometimes blurt out after taking out an enemy, though they can become cheesy and a little repetitive at some points.

It is very easy to become immersed into this game, either because you like X-Men and just love seeing and playing as the characters. Or, maybe it's the story that keeps you going. It could even be the awesome level/character design. This game is very easy to spend many hours on. The first day I bought it, I played for 5 hours straight and never noticed the time.

X-Men. Who doesn't love them? We've seen them in comic books, on TV, in the movies, and even in a few videogames. X-Men have been all over the place, and X-Men legends has made it just that much more sweeter. Being the fan of X-Men that I am, I had to pick this one up, and in my opinion, I suggest you do as well. Don't let the past X-Men Games sway your decision. This is definitely the best of the bunch.

Overall, I love this game. If you're a big X-Men fan, then I suggest you give this one a try. If not, try renting it first because part of the fun is in knowing who the people are and what they can do. See if you find it enjoyable to play an unknown superhero - you never know? I know I enjoyed it, and I hope you do as well. A definite thumbs up, if not two thumbs up in my book. If I may quote Prof. Charles Xavier "Alone, You are Might. Together, you are Legends"