Is Activision trying to burn through a contract as cheaply as possible or something? Spider-man Edge of Time looks like a cheap sequel reusing assets from the previous game. I hope I'm wrong but with no advertising outside, little hype, and possible no review copies sent, it doesn't look good.

In 2005, Activision spent 50 million to lock the license until 2017.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7164

Back in 2005 that that seem like a good idea but then sales began to slide - (numbers are from VGchartz. They probably aren't accurate but they show a trend.)

Spider-man 2: 5.3 million

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - 4.1 million

Ultimate Spider-Man: 1.1 million

Spider-man 3: 3.1 million

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe: 1.34 million

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows: 1 million

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 -2.4 million

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 1.9 million

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions: ~900k

The Sega marvel games have fallen even harder

Iron man: 3.2 million

The Incredible Hulk: 1.2

Iron man 2: 1.1 million

Thor: 25k

Captain America 23k

It is pretty clear that Marvel superhero games in general aren't drawing the numbers on their own. Sure 10 years ago you could slap Spider-man on a game and sell a million units no matter what. Today those IPs don't sell themselves. They have to be good games and no one seems to be pushing themselves. Activision has turn the properties over to their c-list developers which will basically insure low sales. This is really frustrating.

This game is garbage, its almost as bad as X-Men Destiny, why did I even bother with this game!?

To me, Edge of Time marks the developer zigging when they should have zagged.

Rather than another indescript action game, I would have loved a Spider-Man Noir inspired investigation/detective game. Something a little different...just a touch of thought, rather than re-hashing the same concept again and again and again.

I think Edge of Time is a step in the right direction for Spider-Man and actually a lot of fun.

I would be very interested to see an open-world Spider-Man game done by Beenox as well.

Thats cause the games are bad. Look at arkham asylum that game was great and i bet it sold well.

I liked Shattered Dimensions a lot and will probably get this new one a bit down the line.  Maybe early next year.

Spider-Man is the new Tony Hawk.

@HandsomeDead said:

Spider-Man is the new Tony Hawk.

The Edge of Time Quick Look inspired me to pick up a copy of Shattered Dimensions today after Ryan was talking about kind of liking that game, so Activision still wins. :(

I haven't played the new one yet, but Shattered Dimensions really impressed me. It was without question the best Spider-Man game I've ever played. I had a great time with it. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure not a whole lot of people played it. I can't blame them considering all the lousy Spider-Man games in the past, but I'm definitely glad I gave it a shot.

Personally, I blame poor gameplay and an uninteresting emphasis on story.

The simple fact is, you're not going to be able to present a comic book hero story in video-game form that I'm going to care about because you don't have the authroity to do anything interesting with it.

As for gameplay, these are just poor action games with poor action game button mashing.

Simplify the approach and simplify the content and the games will become exciting again. What do players want to do as spiderman? swing. Make a game that is mostly about that, and you're in business. What do players want to do as Iron man? Fly and shoot crap. Make a game that's mostly about that and you're in business.