It’s not often I’m offered review codes for DLC added to games I didn’t originally review. That’s exactly the case with my subject today, however: “The Siege of Castle Doom” downloadable content for Marvel Cosmic Invasion. I don’t want to get bogged down in discussing Marvel Cosmic Invasion overall rather than focusing on this DLC specifically, so I’ll begin by making two quick points. One, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a beat-’em-up title akin to those that were popular in the heyday of arcades. Two, if you want more information about Marvel Cosmic Invasion than that, I’ll direct you to Alexx’s review.

Now then, “The Siege of Castle Doom” adds an entirely new game mode to Marvel Cosmic Invasion, as well as two new playable characters in all game modes. The two newcomers are Invisible Woman and Doctor Doom himself. The overarching plot of Marvel Cosmic Invasion centers on Annihilus invading the earth and mind-controlling other powerful villains to aid him in doing so. Doctor Doom doesn’t think the existing legion of playable heroes are collectively making sufficient progress toward defeating Annihilus, so he’s decided to take matters into his own metallic hands. Doctor Doom has been developing something he calls “the Cosmic Inductor.”

If everything goes according to Doom’s plans, the Cosmic Inductor will send Annihilus and his minions packing once and for all – with complete disregard for any negative impacts the Cosmic Inductor may have on Earth and its inhabitants. That last minor detail is the part that Reed Richards takes umbrage with, and so he sends the existing roster of playable heroes to Castle Doomstadt to stop Doctor Doom before he can fire up the Cosmic Inductor. Man, can’t a self-proclaimed “benevolent tyrant” be allowed to save the world in peace once without all those pesky do-gooders complaining about his methods?

Apparently not, and so Doctor Doom has told the heroes to bring it on. The Siege of Castle Doom game mode is effectively a roguelite. Most of our audience knows what that means: You’re intended to be so weak at first that you fail your first several attempts, while using currencies and resources you gather during those failed runs that unlock permanent upgrades for future runs. Every playable hero you’ve unlocked starts out at level 3 in Siege of Castle Doom, regardless of whatever level you’ve gotten them to in other game modes. That strikes me as a rather nice touch.

That ensures all characters at your disposal start out on equal footing, regardless of whether you’ve power-leveled them in other game modes or you’ve never played them at all. As you choose your path through Castle Doomstadt in each run, you have two main goals you work on concurrently that can be affected by your chosen path: You need to gather energy to charge the Stabilizer’s battery up to its maximum, and you need to fight your way through Doctor Doom’s minions (ideally without getting hit too often) until you ultimately manage to reach the “good” Doctor and his Cosmic Inductor.

There’s a meter in the bottom right corner of your HUD that shows how close Doctor Doom is to using the Cosmic Inductor. This meter increases both over time and whenever your chosen heroes take damage. If this meter fills fully before you reach Doctor Doom, or if both heroes you’re playing fall in battle, you fail the run. Between runs, permanent currencies you gather during each attempt can be spent in Reed Richards’ laboratory on unlocking not just permanent upgrades, but also different kinds of modifiers that, when enabled, can make the next run easier or more difficult for you.

As you’d imagine, the more variables you add to make a run tougher, the more rewards you earn as you progress through it. Since there are three screens you have to navigate through to choose your desired modifiers before starting a run, prepare yourself to tediously mash the “A” button to get past these screens before you’ve actually unlocked anything on them. I don’t particularly like having to do that; perhaps those screens shouldn’t have been introduced until the player has unlocked at least some of their contents. Still, having to mindlessly pass a few screens to get back into gameplay isn’t a huge deal.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is still the chance, however, that those few extra button presses may present potential accessibility concerns for any portion of possible players. Assuming that’s not an issue for you, though, I’d generally recommend picking up “The Siege of Castle Doom” if you and any potential co-op partners could go for another few helpings of Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s gameplay. I’m interested to see whether Tribute Games and Dotemu add any further new game modes to Marvel Cosmic Invasion in the future, though that may depend on the reception to “The Siege of Castle Doom.”

A PC review copy of Marvel Cosmic Invasion: “The Siege of Castle Doom” was provided by Dotemu for this review.

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Marvel Cosmic Invasion: The Siege of Castle Doom

$7.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Core gameplay loop encourages players to try characters they may not have played before.
• “Doom’s Dominion” meter adds mechanics to make the core gameplay loop more interesting.

Cons

• Even with so many playable characters available, core gameplay could quickly become repetitive.