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Marvel: Avengers Alliance Tactics is a Spinoff of Playdom's Marvel: Avengers Alliance, created by the same company. It's essentially a hybrid of the parent game and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, featuring many commonalities with Avengers Alliance (including character artwork, characteristics and game resources), but with significant variations (such as the 3D environment, grid-based positioning and base management).

In this game, the player is the recently-ascended high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander (who in Avengers Alliance was a regular Agent), dispatched to the Savage Land after time-space disturbances have been detected there to maintain a critical base.

The game launched in June 2014 and closed in October 2014.

This game provides examples of:

  • Alternate Universe: The game's main storyline focuses on Incursions, the meeting of alternate universes; the key objective is to defend our world from others who seek to exploit this phenomenon. It is a threat so serious that even villains are willing to co-operate with SHIELD and prevent matters from getting out of hand.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: HYDRA.
  • Character Class System: As in Alliance, Blaster, Bruiser, Scrapper, Infiltrator, Tactician, or Generalist. Other than Generalist, each is strong against one class and weak against another. Heroes have a native character class, and some will have alternate classes available through costumes.
  • Crutch Character:
    • Iron Man and Black Panther, who are the default starter characters. Both are good on their own right (Tony deals heavy damage from a distance, while T'Challa is an agile melee hero who inflicts DoTs), but unlocking other heroes will give you more options in character classes (beyond Blaster and Tactician) as well as tactical choices (e.g. Scarlet Witch, a Blaster who is more of The Red Mage, or Cyclops, a ranged Tactician who provides team buffs). Players also get a free 16 Command Point hero after reaching level 3, but must earn or buy the rest of their characters.
    • More closely fulfilling this trope are the dozens of SHIELD Agents obtained at the start of the game and by constructing base buildings. They may be highly customisable and fill a gap at the game's start when there aren't enough heroes to deploy on a mission, but they have appalling stats and offensive capabilities. It takes quite a bit of work to get them up to scratch, although 1) these are resources that can be more effectively spent on heroes instead and 2) there are so many Agents that it is not productive to upgrade all of them. As a result, most of them end up as filler defensive units in your base or flying jets for silver instead.
  • Enemy Mine: Incursions are a grave enough matter for both heroes and (some) villains to work together. The option to recruit some antagonists is unlocked after defeating them in the story.
  • Friendly Fireproof: Averted in some instances, especially area attacks like Iron Man's Unibeam or Scarlet Witch's Hex Spheres, often to compensate for the coverage, damage or utility these moves have.
    • Played straight with Black Panther, who negates friendly fire on him and nearby allies.
  • Lost World: Unlike Alliance, which sees the player based mainly in New York and other urban locations, Tactics takes place in the rural forests of the Savage Land.
  • Mirrored Confrontation Shot: the Loading Screen, pitting the 6 MCU Avengers against their virtual opposites.
    • One wonders if this is a reference to the 90s X-Men cartoon, whose opening titles had the same thing.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Some missions will pit the heroes against a pack of cyborg velociraptors.
    • Players later discover another example in Morgan Le Fay's army of velociraptor sorcerers; intelligent dinosaurs that can use magic to attack prey.
    • On 24 August, they announced it was to close on 22 October! The no-show at Comic Con? They'd already decided to shut it even then, it would seem.
  • Short-Runners: The game lasted all of FOUR MONTHS before being sunsetted.
  • You Require More Vespene Gas: This game shares several resource types with Alliance, as well as several more of its own.
    • Gold - There are 2 key resources in the game, Silver and Gold.
      • Silver, the primary free currency required for almost any purchase or upgrade. Earned through completing tasks, defeating enemies and flight runs. Your holding capacity for it is determined by the level of your Vault.
      • Gold, the premium currency, can be bought and exchanged into the other currencies. It is earned through levelling up and completing tasks, and occasionally through roulettes.
    • Lumber - SHIELD Points, Refined ISO and Command Points. SHIELD Points and Refined ISO are required for upgrades, while Command Points are used to purchase heroes. SHIELD Points are earned by visiting allies and collecting gifts, Refined ISO through game rewards and the Refinery building and Command Points through roulettes. Refined ISO is further limited in capacity by the level of your Vault.
    • Power - Energy, which enables you to get into combat. It takes 10 Energy to initiate an attack, and the Energy Bar is refilled at a rate of 1 Energy every 6 minutes. Additionally, Energy gifts can be sent and collected.
    • Population - Applies to the number of allies you can have (from whom you collect a SHIELD Point daily) and the number of heroes you can own (determined by the level of your Barracks).

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