998.3 hours played (as of April 22, 2026)

I gave Marvel Rivals a real chance. You don’t get close to 1,000 hours in something you completely dismiss early on.

But I can’t recommend it anymore.

The main issue is balance and pacing. Broken characters and frustrating metas stick around for entire seasons. Changes either come too late or don’t address the real problems, so the game ends up feeling stagnant for long stretches.

There doesn’t feel like a consistent design direction either. Updates often feel reactive instead of planned, and the result is constant overcorrection instead of stability.

I’m not a high rank player and I’m not pretending to be. But you don’t need to be top level to notice when something is off. When the same problems persist for months, it stops being about skill and starts being about design.

Balance also feels disconnected from the average player experience. It leans too heavily toward extremes, either very low level play or high visibility streamers. The middle ground, where most players are, feels ignored.

Combat readability is another issue. Too many fights are hard to understand in the moment. Sometimes you die and it’s not clear what actually happened or what you could have done differently. That makes learning from mistakes harder than it should be.

There are also moments where individual skill just doesn’t feel rewarding. Certain matchups or abilities can feel like you lose before you really get to interact with them, which removes a lot of the satisfaction from improvement.

I also think this game is heavily carried by the Marvel IP. Without it, I don’t think it would have maintained this level of attention after launch. The characters are doing a lot of the heavy lifting that the gameplay systems aren’t consistently supporting.

On comparison, I’ve gone back to Overwatch and it feels more consistent overall. Matches are more readable, and moment to moment gameplay is just more reliable.

Performance is another downside. On my Steam Deck OLED, this game runs noticeably worse than Overwatch. I mostly play on PC, but the difference on handheld is obvious enough that I wouldn’t recommend it there.

At the end of the day, there are fun moments here. That’s what kept me playing this long. But consistency matters more than highlights, and that’s where the game falls apart for me.

If you’re a Marvel fan or just want a casual hero shooter, you might still enjoy it. If you want something stable and well-tuned long term, I’d look elsewhere.

I never thought I’d say this, but Marvel Rivals made me appreciate Overwatch again.

Not Overwatch 2.

Overwatch.

The game Blizzard spent years trying to replace, rebrand, monetize differently, and “evolve” before slowly turning it back into the thing people liked originally.

Overwatch 1 slowly died because Blizzard stopped giving it meaningful content updates for years. Then came Overwatch 2, marketed around a massive PvE mode with talent trees, progression systems, replayability, and story content.

That was THE reason the sequel existed.

Then after years of marketing it, Blizzard canceled the core PvE mode entirely.

The community rightfully lost their minds.

But here’s the ironic part:

After years of backlash, Blizzard actually started learning from their mistakes.

Now the game feels like Blizzard trying to rebuild what made Overwatch good in the first place:

* bringing back features people liked
* undoing unpopular changes
* improving progression systems
* listening more to player feedback
* rebuilding trust they spent years destroying

Meanwhile, Marvel Rivals is currently speedrunning the exact mistakes people warned Blizzard about years ago.

The scary part is that Rivals is still in the “good phase.”

This is the phase where everyone says:
“bro just enjoy the game”
“stop complaining”
“the gameplay carries”

People said the exact same thing during early Overwatch.

Then ignored problems pile up for years until the community finally snaps.

And honestly? Playing Rivals made me realize something:

Overwatch survived long enough to become self-aware.

The gameplay here is still fantastic. The heroes are iconic. The polish is still ahead of most competitors. And after watching another hero shooter repeat the same cycle in real time, I appreciate this game a lot more than I used to.

Good job Aaron Keller. You've been doing a great job. Keep it up. 10/10.