Poor Design Aplenty
Ok, first off, I did like this game.
BUT, this game might be one of the worst designed messes in recorded history. They took the simple game design of previous Lego titles and, well, discarded all of it.
First off, the hub --- rather than being a quick portal to game levels --- is now a level of its own. Which means you get to FIND where the levels are. Fun. Rather than making it easy to locate, you have to search the map to find them. The movement speed is slow enough to make this annoying if you know precisely where they are...but, particularly when you are doing bonus levels, finding them is a chore.
And, when you find them, you get the next joy. You usually have to use specific characters to open them up...but you cannot pick characters from a menu. You have to find their spawn points in the level to get them. And since a regular posse of 6 folks are there, if you need two irregular characters, its going to be a chore pulling it off. Why you cannot just pick who you want is inexplicable.
Mission variety is lacking. Story levels consist of a car battle, huge slugfest, boss fight, and two platforming levels. It lacks variety heavily. The vehicles also handle quite poorly, so the vehicle missions and hub races ain't much fun.
The "super bonus" levels from prior games return, but are far easier and are now simply easy strolls and not nightmarish headaches. This is the one real improvement.
Being saddled with the lame IJ movie is bad enough...but adding in bafflingly poor design is unforgiveable. If you love Lego games, get it. Otherwise, it will disappoint.
