Doomed to Disconnections.
With Doomsday on the horizon, it only makes sense that Cosmic Invasion would center its newest DLC around the leader of Latveria, Dr. Doom. With the inclusion of the Invisible Woman, this Fantastic Four centred DLC provides two new characters to enjoy through its campaign, and the addition of a rogue-lite mode in Siege of Castle Doom that brings a whole new challenge to a game players have likely beaten a dozen times before.
I'll be honest here, I was almost not able to review this. Across nearly 8 hours of play, I wasn't able to reach Dr. Doom and beat this new mode, where a successful run can take you roughly 35 to 40 minutes. Granted, this wasn't due to a lack of skill, but the constant crashes and disconnections across 30+ runs. One run, roughly 3 to 4 hours in, saw us nearly reach Doom, with only one room away, only for the game to kick me out to the main menu. In the past few years, I've never seen such a broken experience. I was extremely disappointed here. Why a “rejoin” game prompt hasn't been added here after all this time is beyond me.
While Doom and Sue can be added to the main campaign, I'll focus this review on these two new characters, and the new mode only.
Dr. Doom is certainly the focus here given how close this expansion is releasing to Marvel's upcoming Blockbuster. Doom is a very chunky sprite, and brings a heavyset feel to his punches, and his ability to also act as a ranged attacker with his magic blasts. Doom feels overpowered in the best way, and that is fitting, given his power set in the comics and the upcoming film.
Sue feels very similar to Nova and Phyla- Vell, given she can also take to the air, walking across an invisible platform. Her ability to learn into her invisibility and psionic force field manipulation powers. She can provide a front shield, or fire off invisible blasts. Her AOE blast also leaves her invisible for a few seconds. While her special is pretty powerful, it feels similar to Doom’s in that it is yet another screen clearing attack.
The Siege of Castle Doom has you attempt to reach Dr. Doom in his throne room, high atop Castle Doom. However, this is a race to the finish to stop his plan, so a Siege Gauge fills up as you fail to progress at a solid pace, or take damage on your way through the game's three biomes. Should the meter fill, it is game over. And, you'll see this a lot.
The three biomes will certainly start to feel insanely repetitive, given you'll explore the same areas each run. You'll explore the Halls of Doom, The Castle Battlements, and the Tower of Solitude.
The Halls of Doom feature Latveria architecture combined with Doom's technological and magical defenses. Some of these traps can be used to your needs, such as punching a spiked ball toward your foes. However, there are similar hazards that can attack you as well.
The Castle Battlements are outdoors and covered in snow. Thankfully, there are no slippery ice areas, but some zones require you to hit a heater to keep the playing space warm enough that you don't freeze.
The Tower of Solitude has you heading higher in Castle Doom, with elevator lifts bringing a classic concept to this mode. There are also tons of hazards, such as switches that cause green electrical energy to flourish, causing enemies to be stunned, and you yourself, should be in the area of effect.
Each zone will have one to several doors that unlock once you complete all waves. These range from green doors to collect health, blue doors to fill a stabilizer, that I'll talk about shortly, or other doors that take you to combat challenges, echoes of previous campaign bosses, or rooms that provide powerful weapons and abilities.
The stabilizer is how you progress, and through many co-op games, I've seen players avoiding these, which is counter to the whole mode. As you fill up the stabilizer, which requires three pips to be filled, you'll earn perks, such as boosted melee damage, better defense, or increased healing, among others.
However, filling a stabilizer moves you to the next area in Doom's castle, making you progress faster. Energy orbs drop from enemies, as well as through the blue doors that have the stabilizer icon on them. Once filled, all doors become a staircase as you progress forward.
While most rogue-lite's have progression systems to make runs easier, this mode does not. Sure, you earn gems to buy modifiers, but nothing to fill your stabilizer faster or decrease the Siege Timer. You can unlock new weapons that can help, such as a turret or spikes rising from the ground, or modifiers that make your character slightly more powerful, but remove the ability to character swap. These change up your run, they don't generally make it easier.
The Battle with Doom is pretty fun, but after nearly 8 hours to get there, I didn't feel that the ending was even remotely worth it, given its a single line of dialogue and the exact same artwork as at the start of the mode. I was expecting far more, given the challenge of this mode.
While the new mode is interesting, I feel the Siege gauge is a bit too harsh if you are not playing the mode properly, and that is largely the case when playing online with people just picking the closest door. Regardless of that challenge, the constant crashes and disconnects really soured my time with the mode, so certainly take my opinion on the update with that in mind. If you are not experiencing these issues, then you're likely bound to have a better time.
The real highlight of this mode is the inclusion of Sue Storm and Dr. Doom, given how fun they are, especially Doom, and taking them into the campaign has been a riot. When the game works, is all.
Developer - Tribute. Publisher - DotEmu. Released - November 10th, 2026. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, PC. Rated - (E 10+) Animated Blood, Fantasy Violent, Mild Language. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code for Marvel: Cosmic Invasion: The Siege of Castle Doom was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.