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X-Men Legends takes the type of simple fun (multiplayer beat-em-up with access to special powers for each X-Man) found in the old arcade game, and puts it into an updated graphical shell along with RPG elements. As a result, Legends can be very enjoyable, though its limited storyline, lack of character balance and repetitive gameplay may eventually turn off some players during its 15-25 hour game length. Importantly, though, Legends is just as accessible to the casual player/X-Men fan as it is to the hardcore.

While you'll start off the game as Wolverine, you'll be able to use other X-men as you progress through the game. All of the characters that become available are fairly prominent X-Men, so there's a good chance that one of your favorites is playable. You'll also meet up with unplayable X-Universe characters who make cameo appearances in the story. Once you've unlocked enough characters to do so, you can load up your party with up to four people, specifically controlling one at all times. Switching between characters in your party is easy, however, and a great feature is that friends can play with you at any time, controlling the other members of the party. Your control over the other team members is limited to asking them to help you with a specific foe, or telling them to follow you with the use of the left trigger, but this is never a real problem.

In the early parts of the game, you'll rely on melee combat because your X-Men's powers won't be well developed. Special powers work similar to magic in typical RPGs, so you can only use them so many times before you run out of the game's equivalent to mana points. Combat, while enjoyable at first, is pretty repetitive. The game isn't very challenging (and there are no difficulty levels), and you'll find yourself basically button mashing to get through the game, even after you've unlocked powers.

There's a reasonably well-written story for Legends, but I didn't think it fit the scale that's normally expected in an RPG - instead, it's the kind of story you'd want in a normal action game. As a result, the motivation to find out what happens next in the story is minimal. Also, by the time you develop each characters' powers, playing with most characters is fairly boring, unless you're a huge fan of every character in the game.

The story is fairly typical X-Men, revolving around the struggles between humans and mutants. Magneto, a powerful mutant who can control magnetism, seeks to control the human race, many members of which irrationally fear and seek to destroy mutants. Professor Xavier and the X-Men (and the player) fight for the other side, believing that humanity and mutants can learn to live in peace and acceptance of one another.

You'll be able to unlock and develop special moves, upgrade attributes, and change items for all your characters, and while there are many options for customization, overall there's a feeling of superficiality to them. This is most likely a result of the uneven balance of power among the characters. While you may like certain characters, there are definitely stronger characters and much weaker ones. Jean Grey is easily the best character in the game, and characters that rely heavily on melee combat (Wolverine, Beast, and Colossus) rather than special powers are generally less effective, especially late in the game. In my opinion, many of the powers just aren't very exciting in combat, so I never became deeply interested in using them. The game does put some focus on getting you to use all of your characters (some characters are needed for specific puzzles), but this isn't done very well.

I tended to stick to a set team for all situations, unless I wanted to try someone for my own personal interest, because it was obvious that certain characters were not good (or fun) to play with.

What distinguishes Legends is the amount of detail in the game world. In between missions, you'll spend time at the X-Men's mansion, where you'll be able to chat with various X-Men, walk around the grounds, and also read up on the various characters. I really liked this aspect, as you can quickly become fairly informed about the X-Men universe. Even the game's cutscenes do a good job of introducing the material to the X-Men newbie, while not being annoying to the more knowledgeable fan. You'll find unlockables such as magazine covers and artwork during missions, which can then be viewed once you return to the mansion. You can even play X-Men trivia for experience points!

Aside from the main storyline, various characters will have flashback episodes in which you'll get to play as that character to see the story play out. For example, one episode is Wolverine's escape from the Weapon X facility. These side stories really help the player get a better feel for some of the characters.

The Danger Room, a training area for the X-Men in the comics, is a major part of the game as well. While the Danger Room initially starts off as a tutorial, you'll continue unlocking bonus missions as you progress in the game, so you'll always want to return to the Danger Room between missions. A nice bonus is that the experience you get from training also gives you "real world" game world benefits - you can use Danger Room missions to develop your characters and earn special items.

The respect the game holds for the source material is plainly evident, and this extra attention is what ultimately makes Legends a fun experience despite its gameplay flaws.

Visually, Legends is defined by its use of cel-shading, but the results aren't impressive While it's a great graphical feature, I'm not so sure that cel-shading should be in every comic-based game. I'm not even sure it makes Legends look "straight from the comics" as it's intended to. The visuals in Legends are colorful, but the character models lack detail, and everything else is underwhelming. Frame-rate stuttering is common, though it has little affect on gameplay.

Patrick Stewart reprises his Professor X role from the X-Men movies here, and unsurprisingly, delivers a fine performance. The voice acting quality for the other characters varies, however, and some accents just don't sound right. Then again, perhaps I'm biased because I tend to expect/hope that the characters sound as they did in the X-Men animated series from the early nineties. The game's sound effects and music are solid, but as with the graphics, I don't feel they particularly stand out as strengths.

I spent a lot of time in Legends leveling up in preparation for missions - this is a fairly common RPG practice, but it actually worsened the game experience for me. In the end I probably spent 30 hours beating the game, with the last 10 being fairly boring because the X-Men were too strong. I would advise, then, skipping extra training and leveling, so that the game doesn't wear itself thin.

Overall, I think the game is worth a purchase, whether you're a hardcore X-Men fan or relative newbie, but if you need a deeper RPG experience, I would suggest skipping out. It's a great way to burn time, but it's not an incredibly engaging experience. In a lot of ways it feels somewhat average, but I think that most people will enjoy the game's detailed representation of the X-Men universe.