New York's in trouble again. It has been infected by a plague of alien symbiotic black goo that is turning the city's inhabitants into monsters (like Venom). Spidey has also been infected by this ichor and through his very own evil black costume is allowed to access more monstrous fighting moves and less goodie-two-shoes plot devices.

With this in mind, this review will take a similar approach to Spidey's in-game dual personality.

First the red and blue-costumed good aspects.

Swinging around New York is a lot of fun. Just like the previous Spidey games, you can alter your swing speed by shooting a web at different times, and tying this into different tricks like running along the sides of buildings is exhilarating.

The combat is easy to get to grips with. By completing missions in the game you're soon able to string enormous combos together with which you can beat the baddies to a pulp.

As hinted at not so subtly earlier, this game is very much a button masher. Find some bad guys, hit the X and Y buttons a lot, and you win. The appeal of some of the more dramatic moves soon wanes when the game requires you to arbitrarily perform that same move countless times against a collection of bad guys as part of a mission.

Yes, swinging through New York is fun, but not when you know how dreary the mission at the end of it will be. Yes, button mashing fighting can be fun, but not when you've had to perform the same thing countless times and knowing you'll have to do it countless times more to progress. Despite appearances, there’s really nothing new to see here, move along.