(Although computer-Groot is more or less identical to film-Groot, and if he's Canadian, I can't tell.)
I know why it's like this and why they aren't the comic versions or even brand new computer game incarnation of the characters, but it does slap a big old identity crisis right into the middle of the game and while said crisis doesn't hurt the game, as such, it does make it feel, as I say, weird.
But weird as it is -- and it is weird, did I mention that? -- it is also good fun. It feels a bit like the old film tie-in games of the olden days; I'm thinking of stuff like Ocean's Batman: The Movie or RoboCop 2, with a jumble of play styles in one game. Most of MGotG is a generic but solid action adventure, with a bit of running, a bit of jumping, and some light puzzling, now and then interrupted with set-piece fights -- of which more below -- but there are also a couple of short spaceship sections, and far too many -- prepare thyself -- quick time event sequences.
QTEs! Oh how I have not missed those cursed things. To see them popping up in a game from 2021, long after everyone had agreed they were a terrible idea, is an unwelcome surprise. They add nothing to the game, and are often plonked down at the exact distance from the most recent save to guarantee maximum annoyance. I turned them off after the second or third instance.
(And thank you to the developers for allowing us to turn off some of the more annoying gameplay elements. I was very pleased to see that there's a very comprehensive set of options for customising gameplay.)
I like the team based combat, which is a little bit standard action game and a little bit real-time strategy. You have direct control over Star-Lord, jumping, punching, and shooting while the rest of the Guardians run about doing their own thing, but you can issue orders for them to use their special abilities -- which change and improve as they earn experience, because of course there's an rpg-light experience system -- from a mostly-slick radial menu thingy, and you can also -- most of the time by accident if you're anything like me -- call them in for a team talk huddle that sets up a minigame in which you have to deliver the right sort of inspirational speech by picking words from a floating word cloud that only Star-Lord can see. This team huddle feature is a little strange and underdeveloped, and I switched it to automatic after the first couple of instances, but it leads to the Guardians all getting supercharged and, more important by far, the fight music changing to one of a selection of perhaps predictable but nonetheless uplifting 1980's pop hits.
(Beating up alien soldiers to Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" is oh so silly, but oh so great, and it never gets old.)
It's a good system that works well most of the time, and makes combat -- of which there is a lot -- always compelling. It also helps distract from the part of battles that you control, which alas is quite loose and slippery, and never really feels like you're in full, well, control of Star-Lord. I do wonder if it would have been better to take direct input away from the player during fights and instead run the entire team, including Star-Lord, from the orders menu. This is more or less what I ended up doing in my playthroughs anyway, keeping Star-Lord out of the fight and issuing commands from the sideline like some sort of football manager. In space.
The writing, in general, is okaaaaaay. There are no real surprises in a tale of a scrappy sort-of-family pulling together in the face of certain doom, and while it lacks the emotional punches of the films -- no Nebula, and no (sob!) Yondu -- there is a decent stab at doing something with Star-Lord being forced into parent responsibilities despite deeming himself unsuitable because of his own upbringing, or lack of.
The only other major issue with the game is perhaps a case of it's-not-you-it's-me. There is a point in the story, which up until then has been linear, where it looks like the whole thing is going to open up and let you zip about space doing jobs to earn money to pay a Nova Corps fine, and then... the Guardians all decide no, they'll just go and do one big paying job instead, and off we go to the next level, all those other possibilities abandoned and ignored.
(Sad trombone sounds.)
In all fairness, the game never says it's going to go open world, but my gosh it suggests and teases it, and that it doesn't feels like a huge missed opportunity. Where the game goes from there is fine, it really is, but it could have leaned into the cosmic side of the Marvel
Still, even if Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as much fun as it could have been with just a couple of tweaks -- and okay, a massively expanded middle section -- it is still a lot of fun. Much better than a film tie-in should be, even if it's not really a film tie-in. Weird.
Arbitrary score: 2021 out of 2014.