Parents' Guide to Lego Marvel Collection

In the world of comics, it's hard to beat a really great crossover, so the team-up of heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe and the creativity of Lego toys and games is a team-up of epic proportions. Now, the Lego Marvel Collection brings together all three Lego Marvel Games, as well as the previously released downloadable content, in one complete package. The games are a veritable who's who in the Marvel Universe, with characters from the comic books and the movies, and nearly every variation in between. Fans of the movies can dance around with Peter Quill and his cinematic Guardians of the Galaxy crew, while classic comic fans can instead go space-hopping with Vance Astro and the original Guardians team from the 31st century. Got a favorite Iron Man armor or Captain America uniform? It's probably somewhere in here too. Each game, on its own, already packed in a ridiculous amount of comic book content, so bringing all three games together is almost too much to comprehend, and an absolute must-have for comic book and Lego fans alike.

Of course, all the characters in the universe wouldn't mean anything without a good game to put them in. For years, the Lego games managed to craft fun and challenging adventures in a way that's still inviting to gamers of all ages and skill levels. While that formula always worked well, it's also been tweaked over the years, something that's a bit more noticeable in the Lego Marvel Collection. Some of the controls feel a bit more responsive and refined in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 than in the original Lego Marvel Super Heroes. And the original voice-overs, complete with cheesy one-liners and quips, are a drastically different feel in the two Super Heroes games than with Lego Marvel's Avengers' sometimes jarring use of actual audio clips from the films. This probably makes that particular entry the weaker of the three games, but only slightly so. Of course, that's like picking which version of the Hulk is the weakest ... no matter which you choose, it still packs a mean punch.