Players buy Marvel heroes to add to their "squad" and use them to go on missions to fight villains, play a special collectible card game with other players, or hang out at their helicarrier HQ. An upgraded account called "Jr. SHIELD Agent" allows players to get more money and allows access to certain heroes that are unavailable to normal accounts. New heroes, accessories, missions, and card booster packs are added frequently, and include almost every character in Marvel's history, from classic staples such as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, to rather obscure ones like The Sentry, Valkyrie, and American Dream (Captain America's Distaff Counterpart from the MC2 continuity).
As marketing for the Avengers movie, playable versions of the movie heroes are available, as well as the movie version of Loki as a mission boss. There were also missions and updates (including new characters and skins) based on Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
Originally the characters didn't speak, but a later update gave them all voices. Many of the voice actors from the show returned.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: In Villainville, and as a Mission setting.
- The Adjectival Superhero: You can actually purchase adjectives for the superhero codename the game gives you.
- Another Dimension: The Dark Dimension in the Dormammu mission and the Astral Plane in the Onslaught mission.
- Badass Adorable: Pretty much every playable character, and many of the villains. Special mention goes to Fin Fang Foom who, when you show up to fight him, is busy... Having tea with his teddy bear.
- Bad Guys Play Pool: Two of Bullseye's cards show him playing pool.
- Boss Battle
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Deadpool, as usual. His third special power move in the missions is one where he grabs his health bar and throws his energy-level stars at the enemy. Sound familiar?
- Butt-Monkey: Quite a few, in accordance with the Rule of Funny.
- M.O.D.O.K., as in the cartoon.
- Scarlet Spider — all of his power emotes screw up (i.e. his web shooters malfunction and splat in his face).
- Pigeons in general suffer quite a bit for the player's amusement. A number of power emotes target them (e.g. Iceman will freeze one solid), and one challenge requires the player to startle a certain number of them into fainting.
- Collectible Card Game: Now available in physical form, too.
- Combat Medic: Phoenix, Angel/Archangel, and Indestructible Hulk. Several other characters can heal in combat, but they can heal only themselves.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Onslaught tries to kill the squad for ruining his sandwich.
- Dual Boss: One mission has you fight Ymir the Frost Giant and Surtur the Fire Demon at the same time. Fortunately, they're also fighting each other.
- Expressive Mask: Exaggerated where even Iron Man's helmet and Mysterio's dome can make expressions. Even the eyes of any Spider-Man's mask can blink.
- Fartillery: Abomination and Gladiator Hulk.
- Farts on Fire: Apparently the last straw that pushes Surtur and Ymir into open combat. Also the (understandable) result of Human Torch using his "Rude" emote.
- Gasshole: Every playable character, since the "Rude" emote will make them either burp or fart on command. Abomination is pretty much labeled as this.
- HammerspaceDeadpool: Time for a trip to the mallet dimension!
- Healing Shiv: Phoenix can heal her allies by setting them alight with green "Healing Flames".
- Involuntary Dance: Some Power Attacks cause enemies to dance in place for a few seconds, preventing them from attacking and making them easy targets.
- Legion of Doom: The Sinister Syndicate (Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Venom, Mysterio, and Lizard) and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, and Juggernaut).
- Lighter and Softer: Than the comics, but that is the whole point of the Super Hero Squad franchise anyway. They even have Blade, Ghost Rider, and The Punisher as playable heroes. This is lampshaded by Deadpool when on a mission with Ghost Rider or Punisher.Deadpool: Hey, I thought we weren't supposed to have flaming skull-heads in this game! Man, we are getting in so much trouble with the ratings board!
- Mundane Made Awesome: Onslaught making a sandwich.Onslaught: My power is UNEQUALED! This is my finest creation!
- Mythology Gag: Oh so very VERY many.
- Noodle Incident: Deadpool mentions a "macaroni incident" when playing a mission alongside Tuxedo Thing.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: It is possible in the game to defeat Dormammu in his own dimension; a feat that virtually no Marvel character would be able to accomplish. Also Phoenix and Sentry are playable characters and while they are top-tier characters in the game, they don't completely annihilate mortal bosses (such as Doc Ock) like they really would.
- Reference Overdosed
- Rogues Gallery: Villains from pretty much every major hero's rogues gallery appear, including several that never appeared in the show, such as Spider-Man's enemies (since he didn't appear, neither did them).
- Shout-Out:
- Deadpool talking to Black Panther: "So is there a Pride Rock in Wakanda? No? Well, okay. Hakuna Matata."
- Deadpool to Bucky Cap: "I thought Bucky was the guy with the red tights and weird yellow collar."
- Super-Deformed
- Token Evil Teammate: Iron Patriot (the Norman Osborn versionnote ), Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Magneto, M.O.D.O.K., Doctor Doom, Venom, Titanium Man, and Dark Surfer, among others, are playable characters, so having any one of them on your team would count.
- The Unfettered: Dark Phoenix.
- Villains Out Shopping: A lot of the bosses in the missions are doing (relatively) innocent things when surprised by the heroes. Annihilus, of all people, is in the middle of carrying his groceries in. Dr. Octopus' bio list this as one of the primary benefits of his mechanical arms.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Mystique and the Skrulls often utilize this power in their missions.
- Whack-a-Monster: There's an arcade game based on this with Deadpool and She-Hulk whacking moloids with a giant hammer. This is used in the Mole Man mission as well.
