Marvel Avengers Alliance

Marvel: Avengers Alliance is a Face Book game launched in March 2012 by Marvel and Playdom Online Games.

In the game, the player, or Agent, is a S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit just finishing his or her training when a mysterious Pulse comes out of space, showering New York with shards of Isotope-8: an unknown but versatile substance capable of boosting human strength, speed, and endurance. Naturally, the criminal underworld is eager to capitalize on this new source of power, but some of the bigger names in villainy are also getting in the game -- notably HYDRA, A.I.M., the Hand, the Maggia criminal syndicate, the Wrecking Crew... And there may well be a man-behind-the-man in the person of Magneto, the Mandarin, Dormammu, or even Doctor Doom responsible for getting all these baddies working together like never before.

The game takes place in an alternate continuity which somewhat resembles the Ultimate Marvel universe. Gameplay is turn-based Western RPG.

The roster is:


 * Blasters: Doctor Strange, Iron Man, The Human Torch, Storm, Phoenix, Ms. Marvel.
 * Scrappers: Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil, Spider-Woman, Sif
 * Tacticians: Mr. Fantastic, Captain America, Hawkeye, War Machine, Cyclops, Black Panther
 * Bruisers: Hulk, She Hulk, Colossus, The Thing, Thor.
 * Infiltrators: Invisible Woman, Spider-Man, Nightcrawler, Black Widow, Black Cat, Kitty Pryde
 * Generalists: Mockingbird.

This game provides examples of

 * Hundred Percent Completion: Getting five-star mastery on all six missions of a chapter earns a special Golden Weapon as a reward.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: The less expensive alternate costumes are merely cosmetic; the more expensive versions also provide a change of character class.
 * Anti Poop Socking: 10 units of Energy are required per battle. Energy refills at a rate of one point every six minutes, or one hour between fights once you run out for the day, so you'll be compelled to either buy more or take a break.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Iso-8.
 * Badass in Distress
 * go missing in Chapter 7.
 * The first Special Ops mission involved rescuing Mockingbird.
 * Badass Normal: The Agent.
 * Barrier Warrior: Invisible Woman.
 * Beehive Barrier: The appearance of certain Deflector Shields, such as Iron Man's.
 * Big Applesauce: The battle maps are New York regions with recognizable landmarks, both real and fictional (Stark Tower, the Chrysler Building, etc.)
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: All the resources needed to play this game are in limited supply and can be purchased with Gold, which is available in-game but is more readily acquired by paying real money.
 * Browser Game
 * Character Class System: Blaster, Scrapper, Infiltrator, Bruiser, Tactician, or Generalist. Other than Generalist, each is strong against one class and weak against another. Heroes have a native character class; Agents may switch between them at will with a change of uniform. Some alternate costumes also provide an alternate class.
 * Character Customization: Players can pick the gender, facial features, skin tone, hair color and style, and name of the Agent.
 * Earn Your Fun: The Golden Weapons and the Epic Boss weapons are better than the items for purchase, but acquiring them is not easy.
 * Elemental Powers
 * Blow You Away: Storm
 * An Ice Person: The Ice Giants, under the command of Loki.
 * Making a Splash: Hydro Man.
 * Playing With Fire: The Human Torch
 * Shock and Awe: Storm, Thor, the Wrecker.
 * Evilutionary Biologist: Magneto is using Iso-8 to turn ordinary humans into unwilling mutants.
 * Gotta Catch Em All: There is a roster of Marvel heroes who can be unlocked, won, or recruited with Command Points.
 * Guest Star Party Member: Certain heroes must be in your party for certain boss battles. If you have not recruited that hero yet, you may still play him/her temporarily.
 * Hello Insert Name Here: The player can name the SHIELD agent player character, but everyone calls him/her "Agent."
 * Item Farming: Command Points drop fairly readily in certain battles, which may be 'lost' and replayed endlessly.
 * Jack of All Stats: The Generalist class, which is neither strong nor weak against other classes.
 * Level Grinding: Tactically wise in standard missions but useless in Bonus Missions, where enemies are all set at the Agent's current level.
 * Mission Control: Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Tony Stark.
 * Money Grinding: The easiest way to earn Silver is to send out heroes on Remote Operations. Repeatedly. The game also rewards active maintenance, which means that 20 three-minute Remote Ops yield more Silver than a single one-hour Remote Op.
 * The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Circle of Eight, an alliance (presumably) of eight powerful villains seeking to undermine the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Randomly Drops: Various items may drop during ordinary combat; hero deploys and boss fights yield rewards based on random selection.
 * Shout Out: To HISHE, after they released their Avengers parody, which made heavy use of Shwarma. On the same day as the parody's release, Shwarma became a giftable item in-game.
 * Super Serum: Iso-8.
 * Unlockable Content: Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and a fourth character of the player's choosing are free. The rest of the roster must be purchased with Command Points. Bonus Missions are also locked until the player recruits the 'unlocking' character.