Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Launch Edition

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers Insomniac's best tale yet, and despite its open world falling short, is a reliably fun superhero power trip.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers an incredible story about heroes and villains grappling with loneliness.

At once a little simple and a little over-stuffed, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is still above all a game of immense charm and fluid, free-form style.

Toothless writing, old-fashioned open world design, and ropey port work undermine what should be a thrilling cinematic adventure.

Canons were made to be broken, and Spider-Man 2 swings in that direction. With a sequel teed up by the game’s final act, I’m eager to see where Insomniac goes with that momentum.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 improves on its predecessor across the board, while saluting the superhero genre over the last 30 years as a whole. With a captivating narrative and unrivaled spectacle, it's the quintessential superhero game, in story and mechanical terms

Insomniac has nailed that rarest of video game development feats. The team has landed a trilogy of games that all stand strong on their own merits but unite into a sweeping saga made better by experiencing its entirety. While more Spider-Man games will inevitably expand this mythology in new directions, there’s no need to wait. With Spider- Man 2, the developer has found what makes superhero stories worth telling (and retelling) and given its likable heroes the journey they deserve.

This is what mainstream action adventure video games should be: a big, wholehearted fantasy, invested with rewarding details and loaded with conflict and emotion.

The problem arises when you may realize what I did: I’ve felt all this before.

Marvel Spider-Man 2 is an incredibly confident sequel and one of 2023's best games. Incredibly fun to play, fast-paced and full of heart, it takes the best of the Spider-Man lore, and the best of Insomniac's penchant for excellent gameplay sequences, and combines them for arguably the best Marvel game ever.