Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Review Summary

Fan mods and enjoyable gameplay shine, with Infinity Stones adding strategic depth, but the terrible story, ugly visuals, and inferiority to UMVC3 hold it back.

Fan mods greatly improve game: The Infinite and Beyond mod is frequently mentioned as a transformative addition that makes the game significantly better, more polished, and worthwhile. Multiple clusters highlight this mod's positive impact on the overall experience.

Gameplay is consistently enjoyable: Players frequently praise the core gameplay as fun and entertaining across multiple reviews. This sentiment is expressed in various clusters, highlighting the game's strong appeal.

Infinity Stones add strategic depth: Infinity Stones are recognized for adding variety, strategic depth, and unique abilities to combat. This feature is seen as a nice touch that significantly changes gameplay.

Strong Marvel and Capcom roster: The crossover roster featuring both Marvel and Capcom characters is a major highlight, with fans appreciating the inclusion of legendary and popular heroes. This mix is seen as well-executed and adds to the game's fun.

Rich story mode experience: The story mode is noted for being interesting, fun, and having a large volume of content. Its inclusion is considered a positive addition that enhances the game's value.

Story mode is terrible: The story mode is widely criticized for its poor writing, awkward dialogue, erratic pacing, short length (around 4 hours), and lack of meaningful impact. Many describe it as laughable or cringeworthy.

Inferior to UMVC3: The game is consistently compared unfavorably to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, with complaints about less content, worse graphics, clunky gameplay, and a smaller roster.

Visuals are ugly: The game's presentation is described as ugly, dull, and horrendous, with many calling it garbage-like in appearance.

Missing X-Men characters: Fans are disappointed by the absence of popular X-Men and Fantastic Four characters, likely due to licensing or MCU promotion, which reduces the roster's appeal.

Matchmaking is dead: Players frequently cannot find online matches, with lobbies appearing empty and matchmaking taking too long or failing entirely.

Infinity Stones define strategy: The Infinity Stone system offers diverse abilities through Surge and Storm mechanics, influencing playstyle and team composition. It replaces assists and X-Factor, adding strategic depth.

2v2 tag team combat: The game centers on 2v2 tag battles with no assists, focusing on character switching and team synergy. This shift from 3v3 differentiates it from predecessors.

Accessible for beginners: Auto-combos and simplified inputs lower the skill floor, while features like turning off auto-combos and a tutorial story mode help newcomers. This makes the game more approachable.

Combo systems and skill ceiling: Combo execution is easy with magic series and snappy combos, but high skill ceiling remains through movement and timing. Scaling prevents infinite combos, encouraging creativity.

Four attack button layout: The control scheme uses two punch and two kick buttons, reminiscent of MvC2. This simplifies inputs while maintaining depth for combos and special moves.

Long load times on HDD: Long load times occur on HDD, with loading times for story mode around 1 minute. Using an SSD is advisable.

Poor overall optimization: Optimization is considered poor, with stuttering in game and cut scenes, and specific bugs like V-sync issues and KO animation stutter.

Performance issues on Steam Deck: Graphics are worse on Steam Deck, though it runs smoothly for some. Online error also occurs on Steam Deck.

Blurry faces from anti-aliasing: Anti-aliasing issues cause blurry faces, and resolution/screen scaling makes characters out of focus.

Story mode not optimized: The single-player story mode is not properly optimized graphically, leading to performance issues.

Buy on discount: Many players advise against buying this game at full price and strongly recommend waiting for a deep discount or sale before purchasing.

Essential Beyond mod: A significant portion of reviewers highlight that the game is only worth playing with the Infinite & Beyond mod, which fixes many issues and realizes the game's full potential.

Not recommended overall: Multiple reviews state the game is not worth buying, even with mods, and advise against purchasing it entirely due to flaws or dead online.

Choose other games instead: Several players suggest skipping this title in favor of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, or the Marvel fighting game collection, especially if they liked previous entries.

Recommend for fighting fans: Some reviewers still recommend the game to fighting game enthusiasts, especially those who value gameplay over presentation or are fans of the genre.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Story completion: 4.0h.

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite offers rapid initial fun once players learn basic controls, especially when playing with friends, despite lacking content and visual polish.

Friction: lack of gameplay modes; boring presentation and lifeless backgrounds; uninspired style; reduced roster compared to previous titles.

Unlock drivers: turning off auto combos; playing with friends; using the tutorial to learn mechanics; sense of progression from high skill ceiling.

Nostalgic Veteran: Competitive, knowledgeable about series mechanics, seeks complex combos and 3v3 format. Motivation: Nostalgia for the franchise's depth and previous iterations. Stance: deep sale.

Casual Local Player: Casual, offline, mash-friendly with auto-combo assists, prefers party play. Motivation: Social fun with friends locally. Stance: sale.

Mod-Enhanced Enthusiast: Willing to mod for improved experience, appreciates community fixes; may be local or single-player focused. Motivation: Modded content that fixes the game's flaws and adds polish. Stance: deep sale.

Steam Deck: The game runs smoothly offline on Steam Deck but is broken for online play due to an error. Visual quality is degraded, control recognition in local multiplayer may fail, and frame rate drops occur occasionally. Denuvo DRM is heavily criticized and suspected of causing online issues. The overall experience is severely hindered for online users, while offline play suffers from noticeable compromises.

Linux and Proton: Based on limited Linux-specific user feedback, the game runs smoothly on Steam Deck for offline play, but online multiplayer is broken, throwing an error. Other reviews are generic and do not address Linux compatibility. This suggests the game is playable in single-player but requires tinkering or is unsupported for online modes on Linux.

Monetization: The game faces severe criticism for its monetization strategy, which includes overpriced DLC characters and costumes, the elimination of the earnable Fight Money system, and clear evidence of content being cut from the base game to be sold separately. Combined with a smaller base roster than predecessors, these practices create a strong perception of greed and poor value, fitting within the 'Aggressive' monetization tier.