In that instance (buying a game for the first time) it's almost always the update. Besides the more characters and more modes, thousands of players will always find balance problems and glitches that a group of developers can't foresee. A new player might not be able to tell those differences, but I think they'll feel that the mechanics are smoother than before.

good point. I also ponder this dilemma for Game of the Year Editions that have all the DLC included. 

I wish I knew whether Capcom would make (yet) another new update of a fighting game. It's just like how I wish I knew which version of CoD is the best. Sigh.

They're probably holding him out for the 3rd edition.

How perfect is that. They release one of their trademark fighting game updates and they snuff out every chance Mega Man had this year?

I can't tell what's going on in their heads.

A finished product without spectator mode,. A finished product with no non arcade vs the computer mode. A finished game with a complete disregard for consistent storyline dispite most of their marketing before the game released heavily implying a storyline. A finished game with capcom openly admitting that 'about half' of the features they are putting in ultimate edition were planned for the original game. A finished game with the original game being released with character balances unfinished that were patched in after the fact (sentinals new lower health values being the operating example) but when people critiqued those balance changes as being knee jerk because of complaining fans they specifically admitted that the first wave of balance changes were planned before the game even shipped but weren't ready when the game came out. I could go on here.

You can argue for the fact that you were satisfied with what they shipped to get the game earlier then if they would have waited to 'finish' it but you cannot argue to me that more time wouldn't have improved the spotty at best original release. Capcom left features and polish out of Marvel vs capcom 3 that were IN the original street fighter 4, not to mention super street fighter 4 raising expectations for the feature set of an online capcom fighting game that MVC3 didn't come anywhere close to meeting. You can't act like the fan backlash to the original game's limited feature set didn't happen so you can't act like my argument doesn't make sense. You can't just say 'they spent so much time on the balance' and sweep all the hard evidence that the game was released earlier then many people think it should have been under the rug. Just because you were satisfied does not mean that no one has a right to be upset with how they handled it.

I feel like that was a slam dunk. (boomshakalaka) Okee rant over ^.^. Sorry to be bombastic there but I really liked the argument I could put together against that one.

That's not a slam dunk at all. The fact remains that what's important to people like me (who play competitively) was there from the start: 36 relatively balanced characters (your balancing examples are actually quite negligible when you think about it -- a few infinites got taken out; Sentinel was the only major change). That's all I need. I don't need a bunch of fancy modes, and I certainly don't need some stupid storyline stinking things up.

I'm also not even sure what you mean by a "non arcade vs the computer mode," but I assume you're referring to a survival mode or a time-trial mode or something like that. Those modes are stupid, and nobody plays them. The only time fighting-game fans notice them is when they are *not* present.

Also, this is quite a presumptuous statement: "You can argue for the fact that you were satisfied with what they shipped to get the game earlier then if they would have waited to 'finish' it but you cannot argue to me that more time wouldn't have improved the spotty at best original release."

I can argue whatever I want to argue, and my contention is that gamers are never satisfied. Theoretically speaking, more time would improve *any* game. That's not really a keen insight; it's kind of just an obvious fact. I don't think the initial product had a spotty launch whatsoever. In fact, I'm more than happy with the $60 price tag (not to mention the $200 I've spent on joysticks). My in-game timer is at over 250 hours. To me, that's a great value proposition.

Mark my words: Fans will inevitably find something new to bitch about when UMVC3 hits shelves. It'll be missing customizable hats or a mode where the controls are reversed or x-y-and-z characters or whatever stupid shit some random on the Internet is thinking of when he decides to mash his keyboard while a N4G comment box is open on his screen.

Honestly I could care less what competitive players think about the release because they are the ones who pretty much HAVE to buy whatever capcom wants them to buy in their fighting game franchises of choice in order to stay current and thus are never going to make up the part of the market that is going to be pleased by a lot of the stuff that was missing from MVC3.

To go against specific points the VS mode (set up 1 competitive match on the same box) in marvel vs capcom 3 has no option to play a single human player against a computer player. An omission that staggers my mind to understand because that makes up a good solid 70 percent of my fighting game playing time because I dislike arcade modes rubber bandy AI and stupid boss fights and I hate getting thrashed by competitive players like you online because these freaking games take years of non stop practice to be at all competitive in and never have a training mode that actually trains you how to play the stupid game.

A storyline is another single player value proposition for people who don't have the skill to compete in multiplayer. Mortal Kombat had an interesting one and proved that people like the concept of that inclusion. Even the original release of street fighter 4 had anime cut scenes tacked on that were kind of cool. Marvel vs Capcom 3 only included the commercials released for the game and pointless and goofy asides that were obviously just the structure of tatsunoko vs capcom retrofitted into this new game. It struck me as lazy regardless of what you think.

Also you can't honestly say that the game couldn't have at least used the time to get a spectator system in there. Or do you really like seeing player cards bump each other in multi person lobbies.

Fighting games have to please casual fans enough to get them to want to become hardcore fans or the fan base never expands. The complaints against this release structure and the release of the original game are being made by people who have a completely different experience with the games then you. THAT is why my argument makes sense and THAT is why you can't just brush it off. To act like the argument is completely invalid is to ignore the concept of anyone who is not you and doesn''t play games like you do having a valid opinion.

Fair enough. I'll just say that I think MVC3 delivered *contingent* upon which section of the player demographic you fall into. I think that to some degree, your point of view is ignoring what players *like me* want in just the same way (i.e. I don't need a bunch of unecessary brouhaha gumming up the works), so it's a bit of a two-way street.

To some degree you are right, though: I would have been fine with MVC3 if it had a start menu and character-select screen that looked like a DOS prompt and no extras whatsoever. As long as everything is fine when I get into a human-versus-human match, I'm cool.

There ya go. I'm not saying that this is a wrong stance for you to have. I'm glad that competitive fighting game players get so much out of these games. It's just kind of hard to be on the outside looking in and not be able to enjoy a good solid chunk of the game because the game's release is only structured to cator to people like you and ignores people like me.