Sometimes, you really just have to say a quiet prayer of non-denominational thanks to the Powers That Be, whoever he/she/it/they may be. I'm thankful to be alive and have my health and incredible good-looks, and grateful that I have a Pizza Hut within 5 minutes drive and a roof over my head that keeps *most* of the water out. And as of today, I am appreciative that 2K games did not feel the need to add "The Official Game of the Movie” to the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer's already long-winded name. That's about as far as my gratitude extends with this particular game though, I'm afraid.

Fantastic Four 2 (yes, that's what we'll be calling it for the duration of this review!) is the latest in a long line of movie-to-game tie-ins whose merit is questionable to say the least. Every so often, these red-headed bastard stepchildren of gaming do occasionally surprise us by being quality titles – or at the very least fun enough to play as a bit of a distraction. Sadly, it is far more common for these so-called games to be about as much fun as open wounds in an alcohol bath, and there's no prize for guessing which of these two categories Fantastic Four 2 falls unceremoniously into.

The game is loosely based on the events of the film as is often the case, and sees the fab foursome up against an intergalactic itinerant known as the Silver Surfer. His cosmic powers play havoc with Earth but as the team soon discovers, he is really just the vanguard for a much bigger problem. Anyone familiar with the Marvel universe will know the rest, particularly if you've played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, but for those who don't I won't spoil the only interesting aspect of the film.

Much like the woeful X-Men 3: The Official Game before it, Fantastic Four 2 is a simple and straightforward brawler that sees the foursome fighting hordes of identical-looking enemies that are about as intelligent as the average stick of celery. With the exception of a few solo departures, all four are present during the game, allowing you to switch between players at will with a simple press of the D-pad. And in one of the game's few saving graces, you can actually play through most of the game co-operatively with a few friends, something the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game noticeably lacked.

It doesn't take a MENSA candidate to work out that each of the protagonists will have their own unique skills and abilities, and even if you're about as bright as the enemy A.I. the game will drum it into pretty quickly by forcing you to constantly mix it up to advance. Mr. Fantastic is required to stretch up to hit high-up buttons, Invisible Woman can walk through certain barricades undetected to...also hit buttons, and the Human Torch can fly above other obstacles so that he too can, yep, you guessed it, hit buttons. Pretty much the entire game boils down to hitting enemy lackeys and hitting buttons, and if the sound of that makes you think you'd want to hit the eject button on your Xbox 360, then save yourself five minutes and stop reading now.

Fantastic Four 2 is insultingly simple in almost every way. The level design is linear and the solutions to most puzzles are thrown in your face via in-game cutscenes as soon as you walk into a room, and the combat is downright pathetic. Each character has a strong and weak attack, and by chaining/mashing the buttons you can create combos. Why bother? That's a good question, particularly given that the superpowers are *much* more effective and slightly more fun to use. Each character has 3 available, ranging from fireballs and flying for the Torch to shockwaves and hardened skin for the Thing. Both these guys are much more useful than Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman however, so you will probably only end up using the power couple when the others are K.O.'d or their solo missions.

This presents something of a dilemma in regards to the game's level-up system, which revolves around collecting "4” tokens that come out of deceased baddies and busted-open crates to enhance your skills. All four characters have a basic skills category consisting of attack, defence, cosmic-regen and recovery time. They can also enhance each of their specific skills in a variety of ways – usually making them cheaper to use or more powerful. Maxing-out the Human Torch's fireballs will allow you to neutralise any ranged threats, while the Thing's shockwave will decimate nearby foes. Compared to Sue Storm's telekinesis or Reed Richard's cosmic grenade (which is honestly as ridiculous as it sounds) just doesn't seem to be worthwhile.

What makes it worse is that two of the four game team up when nearby to unleash a "fusion move”, which is basically a super-strong attack that can clear most rooms in an instant. So once you realise that these can be dropped two or three times before your cosmic energy is depleted, not only will you not bother with the melee combat, but you won't want to waste your time with the special abilities either, which is a damn shame. Eventually, the game will just boil down to entering a room, deploying a few fusion attacks, and then moving onto the next area. It's about as close to a chore as entertainment can get, especially since when your cosmic energy runs out, you'll have to resort to the melee combat. Brawling just isn't what the Fantastic Four are all about, and it shows in the few solo missions, in which Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman both prove just how useless and fragile they are when it comes to a bit of biff.

The only end to the interminable repetition of this formula is the occasional boss-battles, many of which show the faintest glimmer of inspiration and fan service, that is swiftly extinguished by the insipid gameplay. Comic classics like the Skrull, Terrax and Red Ghost all put in an appearance, as does Dr. Doom who returns for the film as well. The battles themselves range from fun to frustrating, but either way it's an emotional response other than boredom which is better than nothing I suppose. Plus, beating the snot out of semi-sentient apes wielding space-age rifles will never get old, no matter how banal the game.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the game's environments and visuals, which are incredibly simple and repetitive. In some of the levels like the military base or space station, it's easy to get lost because all your surroundings look exactly the same. Often your only compass is a Hansel & Gretel style trail of breadcrumbs you leave behind – here, the crumbs are represented by annoying fragments of broken objects the trip you up and get in the way. Fantastic Four 2 is a cross-platform experience and it shows in all the usual, awful ways: low-res textures, simple models, barren environments and Spartan effects. The 360 version looks alright running in high-definition and frame-rate issues are fairly minimal, but seriously, in this day and age you just don't fork out a premium price for something that looks this tired and old.

And speaking of tiresome, the voice talent they hired for the game really sucks. The foursome bear their celebrity likenesses but not voices, and the mob they hired are woeful. Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch sound almost identical, and determining who is speaking often comes down to guessing based on Mr. Fantastic's nerd dialogue. Sound and music are of an equally low standard, but are blissfully forgettable and rarely make the experience any worse than it already is.

All this is especially disappointing because it had the potential to be so much more. The character upgrade system works well, the inclusion of four-player cooperative is nice, there's a decent range of extras and the film is better than the original was. Plus, we're talking about superheroes slamming evil-doers – why is it so hard to get that right? Fantastic Four 2 is at least brief, weighing in at around 6-8 hours tops to beat the game. You can hunt down collectibles to unlock more of the extras and score some more Achievements, but the game is such a painful chore as it is that a second play through would be akin to volunteering to go back to the dentist for another root-canal.