Open beta for Marvel Heroes Omega starts next week, but if you were in the closed beta you get to start today. I was and I did. Everyone else can play free I believe on Tuesday.

I’m really enjoying this game. I know all my PC gamer friends have been playing Marvel Heroes since forever, but for some reason my PC and Marvel Heroes never got along, so even back when I was playing PC games I never got a chance to play much of MH. But the nature of this game just makes it ideal (to me) as a couch game. In fact it supports couch co-op so you and a friend can play together, side-by-side.

If you haven’t played Marvel Heroes in a while, you may be surprised to learn that the whole “Level up, earn points, spend points” system has been replaced. Now you just unlock powers as you level from 1-30 and don’t have any choices beyond what keys to bind powers to. I WANT to complain about this since it “dumbs down” the game, but in practice I like this just find. This is just a fun game to me and I’m OK if I don’t have to research builds or what not in order to have a good character. There’re systems beyond powers that kick in much later in the game and maybe that’s when you have to start thinking hard about what you’re doing, but early on it’s just a casual hoot.

There was one glitch with the launch of early access, in case you hear stories about this. When you create a Marvel Heroes account, you get a bundle of “Eternity Splinters” to spend on a hero. Between closed and open beta they bumped up the cost of Heroes, but they forgot to bump up the amount of Eternity Splinters they gave new accounts. That meany very few heroes (2 I think) were affordable for new accounts.

Gazillion realized their mistake pretty quickly and gifted affected players with an additional 500 Eternity Splinters, so we actually made out. I’d purchased Angela (from Spawn, I’m told) since she was cheap, but now I have enough Eternity Splinters to buy another hero.

Of course everyone is mad at Gazillion but it wouldn’t be the Internet if they weren’t. I’m not. Like I said, I feel like I got a bonus and I’m enjoying playing Angela.

So far, servers seem stable, everything else is working well. People are grinding through mobs and busting boss-loot-pinatas and it’s just a gas. I can’t wait to play more. Hopefully everything will stay as solid when the doors are open and everyone comes rushing in.