Conclusion

Marvel's Spider-Man 2: bigger, better... and buggier? While the game runs fine both on Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally, it suffers from crashes on Windows, which we didn't experience on SteamOS. And while the overall performance is much lower on Steam Deck, frame times are more stable on SteamOS compared to Windows, where you can expect intermittent stuttering while traversing NYC even if you drop every single visual option to its lowest.

While the game suffers from crashes and stuttering on Windows, the performance is high enough to make it playable on ROG Ally. You can expect a pretty stable 30-60 FPS experience with the right settings combination, and VRAM set to 6 GB.

On Steam Deck, the game is barely playable. By setting every single option to its lower and utilizing the "Performance" setting of the upscaler of your choice, you can reach a somewhat steady 30 FPS experience with occasional drops below 30 FPS. While this makes the game barely playable, it also causes the image quality to go down the drain.

While we would call Marvel's Spider-Man 2 playable on Steam Deck, the image quality is anything but pretty. At the end of the day, feel free to get the game if you're fine with said image quality and can swallow sub-30 FPS excursions when web-slinging and gliding across NYC. If you aren't sure, get the game, test it inside the two-hour Steam refund window, and then either keep playing or get your money back.

When it comes to the gameplay and the story, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It's a sequel, yes, but one that solely augments the original formula instead of trying to drastically change it, for better or worse.

The game world is much larger this time around thanks to the addition of Brooklyn and Queens NYC boroughs, with each part of the map teeming with open-world activities. Combat is as fluid and fast-paced as in the first two games, with the addition of new gadgets and special moves.

The game offers a collection of new open-world activities, which should prevent getting jaded after a few hours, but the usual slew of crime side missions stayed pretty much the same. You can now glide across the city, which is here to make traversing across large bodies of water easier and faster. It's not really faster than web-slinging, but it does help traverse the East River.

Now that you can play both as Peter Parker and Miles Morales, the game feels more dynamic since you can switch between the two in a jiffy. The two Spider-Men have somewhat different abilities, each with his own ability tree along with the main tree shared between the two characters, and each with their own set of animations when traversing the open world. This gives the game a welcome breath of fresh air, especially once you start unlocking the Symbiote powers and extra suits.

Personally, I like the game. It's fun, and while I know I'll get fed up with open-world activities sooner rather than later, the map, story missions, combat, and the sheer joy of web-slinging around the city will probably keep me hooked until the end credits. That said, Peter and Miles will have to wait until I finish my adventures with Henry in medieval Czechia. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a game I've been waiting for for seven years, is just around the corner, and I plan to play the hell out of it.