WHEN THE ENDGAME IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Marvel’s Avengers (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £59.99) Verdict: For ever? Never! Gnosia (Switch, £22.49) Verdict: Suspect everyone!

LET’S start at the end — because that, in a way, is where Marvel’s Avengers wants us to begin.

This is what the marketeers call a ‘game as a service’. The idea is that you bash away at a controller, mastering the combos and upgrading your characters, until you enter an expanse known as the ‘endgame’, where you might just remain playing extra missions for weeks, months, or even . . . years.

In these sort of games, the endgame is the point. The service is a form of entrapment. To keep things from getting stale — and to keep you playing alongside others online — the developers will add new cataclysms and ways of combating them. Sometimes for free. Often at a cost.

What Marvel’s Avengers has over its rivals, such as the Destiny series, is, well, the Avengers as playable characters: Patriotic Man, The Green One, Agent Catsuit, Thunder Muscles, and the others — all looking close to their movie versions, but not so close for royalties to be paid.

What it has not had in the six months since its release, unlike Destiny, is many new additions. Another superhero, the bow-slinging Kate Bishop, was drafted in last December. This week sees her mentor, Hawkeye, join the action, as well as a graphical update for the new generation of consoles.

None of it is enough to fill out that endgame — which still just seems like punching more things in the face. There is a promise of future updates, but, at this rate, will anyone hang around long enough to experience them?

But now let’s finish at the beginning. Before the endgame, there is a single-player campaign to enjoy: about ten hours of comic-book storytelling that revolve around the amazingly likeable Kamala Khan — aka Ms Marvel — and her stretchy powers. For that time, Marvel’s Avengers is fun, beautiful and inventive. The sad thing is, it wants you to stay for ever. I’VE started looking strangely at my wife, son and cat. Might they be murderous aliens, out to get me? Or is it just Gnosia getting inside my head? This game has you guessing which of your spaceship crewmates are not as they appear.

It’s effectively a single-player version of the multi-player megahit Among Us — but don’t mistake it for a cheap knock-off. It has its own offbeat rhythms and is as moreish as Pringles. Once you sink into full-blown paranoia, you can’t stop.