Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: Shadow of Doom DLC impressions: Doom's day

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order could be considered as the greatest collection of Marvel superheroes in a single game. However, that wouldn't be true. There were some very noteworthy omissions from the hero and villain rosters. Where was the Fantastic Four? And where was their arch-nemesis, arguably the greatest villain in comics, Doctor Doom? Marvel Games, Tecmo Koei, and Team Ninja have finally gotten around to addressing this oversight in the best way possible. They've added an official epilogue story with the game's final piece of DLC, Shadow of Doom.

Soul train

The new Shadow of Doom story content takes place in the aftermath of the original campaign. The Infinity Stones are scattered, the villains are defeated, and the heroes are meeting via super conference call when Wakanda is suddenly attacked by Doctor Doom. Doom is seemingly searching for the Infinity Stones, though there's more to his plan than meets the eye.

One might imagine that this would lead into a lengthy campaign, but the Epilogue story comes in rather short. Players basically get three full-length chapters, which is fine for the asking price. But it does feel a little bit disappointing that it can all be done in just a few hours.

But for what it is, the story is presented well, it does a good job in introducing the Fantasic Four characters and conveying who they are. Plus, it presents players with some interesting combat challenges. As an addendum to the original story, I enjoyed Shadow of Doom for the most part. Of course, there is one issue that I do want to point out.

Cosmic pain

Hey, remember in our original Ultimate Alliance 3 review how I briefly mentioned the camera? The camera that could easily be a player's worst enemy? Anyone who had hopes of that getting better with Shadow of Doom might want to sit down for this. The camera somehow got even worse, but that's not the biggest issue with Shadow of Doom.

Without spoiling the story setup, there are multiple sections that require players to go down a corridor. There are laser blasts that knock players backwards multiple times, juggling them while they're down. Later, there are lightning bolts that stun lock players so that they get stuck in place, right before the laser blasts knock them back repeatedly. See a light at the end of the tunnel? Here's a lightning bolt to stick you in place and multiple lasers that hit you repeatedly until you're all the way back at the beginning of the section. And worse, because of the aforementioned camera, it's impossible to see anything!

What are these sections? Did somebody read the myth of Sisyphus and get inspired? Who designed these sections? And more importantly, who hurt this person? What is this person's origin story and why did they embark on this specific path of supervillainy? Even on Friendly difficulty, these sections are overly unforgiving and will make more than one player angrier than the Hulk.

There are three of these sections in total and they come near the end of the Epilogue. Once you're through them, you never have to deal with them again until you tackle them later at a higher difficulty. But they are easily the worst thing about the new DLC.

Clobberin' time!

Shadow of Doom offers the chance for players to truly make their best combinations of Marvel's finest. The Epilogue story is a great way to cap off the full Ultimate Alliance 3 package, while there are new Gauntlet challenges and some new unlockables to keep super fans playing for a long time to come. The Fantastic Four themselves are loads of fun to play, with Mister Fantastic offering fun rubbery attacks and the Human Torch serving up some hot fire.

For those who were disappointed by Ultimate Alliance 3's first few DLC offerings, Shadow of Doom has some more meat to it and should be more of what true believers are looking for.

These impressions are based on a Nintendo Switch code provided by the publisher. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3: Shadow of Doom is available via the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 Expansion Pass for $19.99. The game is rated T.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?