Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Green Goblin Crashes the Party
When AMG first announced their foray into the world of board games with the Alliances line as a spinoff from Marvel: Crisis Protocol, I was… skeptical. After all, could they really take a game I love like MCP and spin it off into a team-based co-op experience? Could they capture what makes MCP work? I was dubious. While it’s not a perfect experience, I was completely pleasantly surprised by just how fun the game turned out to be. It’s just an absolute blast.
The quick idea is that each Alliances game brings together a team of four heroes, all with varying superpowers, to take down an iconic villain and their army of goons. Here, we get both Spider-Men (Peter Parker and Miles Morales) along with Black Cat and Ghost-Spider, teaming up to take down the Green Goblin. Together, they’ll fight him across three different chapters (two objective-based chapters and a final boss fight), each lasting roughly 90 minutes each.
Getting started is simple – each player picks the character they want to be and picks a level 1 upgrade, and then you’re off. It’s worth noting that if you’re a solo player, this game is very easily playable in solo mode with you controlling all four characters, though I can’t speak to that experience directly since I don’t play solo games. I only tested it out with a full group of four players.
Pumpkin Bombs and Power Choices
The combat system is a stripped-down version of MCP’s combat system, meaning it’s a lot easier to onboard new players (and MCP’s combat system is already really easy to learn). When you attack, you’ll roll dice equal to your attack’s strength, calculate your successes, subtract any static armor values the enemy has, and the result shows how much damage goes through. Most of the enemies only have 1-2 hit points, so it’s pretty easy to remove them from the map. Once removed, enemies go into a queue for a spawn system, so you’re constantly getting new threats joining the fight. Killing enemies can help advance objectives, but it also helps you gain experience to level up, as well as pass out helpful assists to your team, such as healing someone or letting them move or gain power.
At certain experience breakpoints, you’ll level up! This lets you pick between two different upgrades for your character. Sometimes, it’s an upgrade to an existing attack. Other times, it’s a brand new ability to specialize you into one role or another. Playing Ghost-Spider, I chose to opt into a build that dealt more damage so I could take down tougher enemies, while the player who chose to play Peter Parker opted for a more defensive build to let him take hits from multiple baddies at once. There are tons of roles you can specialize in, with everything from mob control, support, and utility being options, among many others. Every level-up choice felt meaningful and was an exciting moment for the table, though not quite reaching the threshold by the end of a round and having to watch everyone else level up before you was decidedly a downer.
Each round of the game has all characters in the game activating twice, with all player characters going once before the enemies get a turn. If you take too much damage, you’ll “daze” and lose your second action. At the end of the second action phase, there’s a cleanup phase where your dazed character will flip to their injured side and rejoin the fight. If any player character ever reaches 0 hit points while injured, they are KO’d, and the game immediately ends in a loss. This is a double-edged sword. If you get dazed at the first enemy action, you’re stuck watching your friends play out an entire action phase without you. However, if you level up, you flip your character back over to the healthy side and heal to full. This means death can be used strategically to draw enemies away from your allies when you know you’ll be able to take advantage of a full heal soon.
Once you complete the objective for the scenario you’re playing, you win that round and move on to the next. If you complete your third scenario and kill the Green Goblin in his boss mode, you win the game! The boss level, especially, is fun and unique. I won’t spoil it except to say it involves Green Goblin ramming people out of the way on his glider, and your team must work together to set traps for him. I will say, playing this out over multiple separate sessions feels like a bit of a big ask. There’s no “save state” system in between games, such as in something like Arcs, so there’s a bit of manual prep work to track your characters’ upgrades and such in between games.
Assembly Required (More Than You’d Think)
AMG’s new “F.A.S.T.” system is their attempt at a push-fit line. It’s pitched as glue-free and fast to assemble. My actual results, though, were more mixed. Some of the models snapped together cleanly, most notably the big, chunky robot models. However, many others left visible gaps or wouldn’t sit flush. In some cases, I wound up cutting off the pesky pegs from the snap-fit system myself and using super glue or plastic cement to make sure the model looked right, especially since I plan to use some of these sculpts in my MCP games. War Goblins, specifically, kept falling off their gliders mid-session, which means it’s a functional problem and not just a cosmetic one.
The board gamer audience might be caught off-guard by the need to assemble anything at all, especially when so many high-price-tag games have come with fully detailed and assembled plastic miniatures. It’s worth noting that there are over 20 miniatures in this box, which means that the $100 price tag is actually generating a lot of value. You’ll just need a set of sprue clippers to make sure you can snap everything together.
The other big miss in this box is the lack of a storage system or organizer. I’m a sucker for a good, sleek organizer, but hey, even I own Splotter games where the official organization platform is “throw everything haphazardly back in the box”. That works fine for some games, but for a game with miniatures like this one, I’m nervous. The minis just sit loose in the box in between games, and in our sessions, we had several pop off their base or have their snap-fit come apart in between sessions from jostling around in the box. I’m anxiously awaiting a community solution for this, whether it’s a foam insert or a 3D printable solution.
Was the Party Worth Crashing?
I had a blast with this game. I wasn’t expecting it to involve so much cheering and giggling, or tense moments like everything hinging on one reroll converting to a success. Discussing as a group who should fill what role at level up, and discussing who could cover certain objectives was always fun, but it never felt like anyone was quarterbacking. Each player owned the responsibility for their character, and their successes were actually theirs.
We were a little let down by the climax – once you finish off Green Goblin in his boss run, the game just… ends. All good things must come to an end, but after 3 sessions at 90 minutes to two hours long, having potentially six hours of gaming come down to a shrug can feel really disappointing. The other minor nitpick is that there seems to be a missed opportunity to include difficulty levels in the box. There’s only one version of each type of minion. The cards aren’t even double-sided! Would’ve been nice to see a normal and hard mode version of each enemy, or just some kind of variety to spice up future replays.
That lack of variety may be fixed as more boxes in the Alliances line hit the shelves. AMG has already announced an X-Men-themed game coming in Q1 of 2027, featuring four X-Men taking on the Sentinels, and then in Q2 of 2027 we’ll get an Avengers team taking on Kang the Conqueror. They’ve also confirmed all games in the Alliances line will be cross-compatible, meaning you can mix and match your characters to your liking. I’m looking forward to bringing Miles Morales alongside Cyclops, Gambit, and Iron Man to take down Kang once those boxes are out.
If the $100 price tag for a box is a big bite for you, then I’d recommend just picking up whichever box appeals to you thematically. I’m not that interested in the full Spider-Man roster, so if I were purchasing this for myself, I’d likely just wait for that X-Men-themed box. Even if you’re interested in this Spider-Man-themed adventure, I would potentially wait until the community figures out a storage solution – or if you’re enterprising, you can totally invent your own. However, if you’re someone who likes to be a completionist, the cross-compatibility is a huge selling point for this line of products. It’s a really fun experience, and I recommend it with the caveats listed above for the components. If you know what you’re getting into and it still doesn’t scare you off, then this is definitely worth your attention. The system surprised me, in a very good way, and I’m glad I gave this game a fair shake.
Until next time, heroes!
Marvel: Crisis Protocol Alliances – Night of the Goblin details
- Designer: Will Shick
- Artists: N/A
- Publishers: Atomic Mass Games
- Release Date: 2026
- Player count : 1 - 4
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 90 - 120 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling, Grid Movement, Hexagon Grid, Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game, Variable Player Powers
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.5 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.5.
- More articles about Marvel: Crisis Protocol Alliances – Night of the Goblin.
