New consoles, end-of-year releases, forever-updated tech and too many Monasteries to Raid has meant dolling out our next-gen review coverage for games throwing themselves around as examples of the new power ahead of us. Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales then presents itself as both a game swing away from what came before, to showcase that future, while also maybe holding itself back just a little too much.

If your Spidey sense is tingling, here's what that might be:

To that end, as a sequel it feels lite-on in the addition department. It’s pretty, has great voice-acting and an excellent story, but MM feels more separated from its different focuses. As if they were all plugged into a previous blueprint, but no one at Insomniac bothered to speak to an interior designer or Marie Kondo-type, leaving it all feeling kind of like a kit house, rather than your forever home.

If we’re still rolling with ‘out there’ metaphors, then at least the game’s story is Your Friendly Neighborhood (you’re welcome), and tonally the studios has embraced Miles and Miles’ world. There’s a sense of the brilliant Into the Spider-Verse about it all but, problematically, is that Miles’ tragedy is a very, very known and public position. So the game leaves very few twists and turns where storytelling is concerned, instead those are left to traversal, and that’s sort of hitting the nail on the head -- in Miles Morales there’s a great delivery of story, but it’s an expected quantity, so more often than not you’ll start feeling like the game is paint by numbers than an engaging and “I need to know more!” experience.

Click here for our full Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales review.