The Amazing Spider-Man: addictive super-hero game

What you need to know
Developed by Beenox, who created the previous Spider-Man games Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time, The Amazing Spider-Man is a third-person open world action game set as an epilogue to the movie of the same name.
 
Dr Curt Connors – The Lizard – has been defeated and languishes in jail. Oscorp executive Alistair Smythe takes Connors's research and plans to create more cross-species experiments, but the mutants escape and cause havoc across Manhattan.
 
Spider-Man has to battle not just cross-species like Rhino, Iguana, Vermin and Scorpion but also a hoard of robots sent out by Smythe to battle his escaped experiments. The Lizard pops up, and players also collect various items – comic book pages and so on – as they swing around the city.
 
What the critics like
This is not just a cynical money-grabbing movie tie-in, says Ken Leffrenier at Xbox Addict. It is an original, exciting game that picks up where the movie ends. "Absolutely stellar," Leffrenier concludes, with the added bonus of Spidey's girlfriend Gwen Stacy.
 
Rock solid and with stunning visuals, the game pulls off the near-impossible: it brings back some much needed credibility to the much abused Spider-Man franchise, says Ron Burke at Gaming Trend. The robot battles are "truly the highlight" of the game, and you'll look forward to these fights the most.
 
It's a "thrill ride that stands on its own webs" says Edwin Millheim at Impulse Gamer. The fighting is "frantic and crazy", the cityscape and graphics are "breath-taking" and the whole experience is "one hell of a fun ride".

What the critics don't like
While the game is "fun" it is almost "more impressive to watch than to play", thinks Mike Anderlesz at The Guardian. It does have "scale, pace and playability" but gameplay is "button-mashy" and you can often find yourself disoriented.
 
It's yet another game that's careful to not rock the boat, says Henry Gilbert at Games Radar. Nothing is broken or painful to play, and there's still "an intrinsic fun to being a video game Spider-Man" – but this is too much like what we've played before. It does what you expect it to "and not a whole lot more". ·