Destined to be deleted... by the judge's orders!
X-Men: Destiny's story is legendary, as the developer was forced to destroy every remaining copy of the game due to some legal shenanigans with the Unreal Engine. It was also a legendary flop, a game that promised a lot but underdelivered spectacularly.
Basically, part of the promised appeal of the game was following your created character, except you don't. You get three pre-made archetypes: A dumb jock who looks cartoonishly large and hits on every female character becoming the butt of the joke, an asian teen girl that looks like an edgy tryhard and a fascist anti-mutant bloke who becomes a mutant. None of the characters get all that much story, just a slightly different prologue and a few different lines. When the game first starts, you get a choice of three different powers: A defensive power, a DPS power and a power that focuses on Area of Effect. Animations are shared between characters, although each power makes more sense on a specific character, for instance, the DPS blades and acrobatics make more sense on the girl, although you can have the cartoonishly thick joke pull off bladed somersault kicks like the best of them.
Regardless, all three character archetypes are unlikable at worst and tolerable at best. Not being able to edit their faces or bodies was a huge miss on the developers' part. Another big selling point were the moral choices between Magneto's Brotherhood and Cyclops' X-men. Well, I played the game twice, to get the Platinum trophy, and I can tell you that your choices barely matter. At most they'll change a 3-minute sub-mission during a stage. At most. You can even play the entire game making Brotherhood missions and then pick the X-men side at the end. It's that inconsequential and lame. The boring plot actually turns against the game on repeated playthroughs, as there's just too much unskippable dialogue and cutscenes. It's a beat'em up, I want to beat people up, why do I have to sit through so much meaningless babble?
Gameplay is simple to a fault. Light attack, heavy attack, dodge, block/parry and jump. You get four combos: Weak x4, Weak then Strong, Weak twice then strong and Weak thrice then strong. That's it. At certain points during the story you'll be able to pick your 3 other powers, picking between two choices each time. You get but a brief description of both, no video, not a chance to try each out, no nothing. These powers consume energy from your Mutant Gauge, but... maybe you are better off not using them. You can upgrade all of these with XP earned by defeating baddies.
Where the game gets a bit more interesting are X-Genes. You can mix and match four of them: Outfit, Offensive, Defensive and Utility. Outfit it's just cosmetic, to get your character to cosplay using the colors and some motifs of a popular character. Offensive usually adds some effects to your attacks, like Fire damage over time with Pyro's or just overall stronger attacks with Juggernaut's. Defensive might give you more defense, like turning into Diamond with Emma Frost's or Ice with Iceman's, or heck, Toad's makes it so that you expel poison that weakens nearby enemies' attacks, heck, Surge's turns your dodge into an offensive dash. Utility is a bit more interesting, for example, it might lengthen your HP or mutant gauges. Picking all four Genes of a specific character grants you a bonus mode that consumes energy from your mutant gauge continually. Whichever the case, many of these passive abilities trigger more frequently the more Mutant Energy you have store, which kinda defeats the purpose of using Abilities.
It's a shame the game is so basic and unimpressive, as the X-Genes idea was fairly decent, and, to be honest, I had fun coming up with the best genes for my playstyle. But planning out my build can only be so much fun when the rest of the game is so dull.
4.5
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