Marvel Puzzle Quest is a new entry in the Puzzle Quest series.
It's a free game on STEAM, if you can believe that. And if you can believe that it's free, boy have I got a bridge for you!

Jokes aside, it's a fairly standard Puzzle Quest, even with the Marvel reskin.
Make matches, collect mana of different colors, do damage.

As you win in the game, you collect ISO-8, the game's standard currency, used to Level your heroes, and Hero Points, the "Premium" (Pay-To-Win) currency, used to buy new "Covers" (Comic Book Covers, rated in stars, determining the relative power of your heroes--that's right, it's Puzzle Quest, the CCG!) However, higher stars doesn't necessarily mean unilaterally better, as some of the heroes' powers are pretty worthless. Oh, and speaking of powers, you have to either buy Covers and hope you get the right Covers for both the hero and power you want, OR pay directly to boost the power you want more of. BUT WAIT, there's more!
Two-star heroes are the highest that can access ALL their powers. After that, you're limited to a total of 13 "Power Points"--you can get TWO of your 3 powers to full, and the last one to 3 only. Or 5-4-4, if you prefer. And for an additional kick in the pants, you can't Level your hero past a certain multiple of your Power Levels. So you HAVE to reach max Power Level ASAP, or be stuck with low HP as well as literally underpowered.

But wait! Rather than having to match some special Skull icons, ALL colors matched do damage--which can be more or less, depending which characters you're playing as. Iron Man, for instance, does nice damage on red and yellow, but nearly nothing on say, black&purple matches.
Oh, and ONLY Named characters--signature superheroes and supervillains--can move the balls around.
So your first few fights should be easy, against two-bit thugs and Mafia dons, right?

Except the bad guys CHEAT! No, I'm not saying that to be comic-book cliche. In gameplay mechanics, the enemies DO cheat! Watch the Mana colors and numbers.
THE BAD GUYS' MANA GOES UP WITHOUT THEM MAKING A SINGLE MATCH!
"Okay", you think, "This shouldn't be so bad. It's just to be fair, otherwise nameless enemies would just be punching-bags!", right?
In practice, though, this lets them get literally free hits on YOU!
(If you play fair, though, this makes The Hood's powers incredibly valuable for a mere 3-star, as he has one that allows him to literally steal the enemies' Mana when they get too much!)
Gets even worse in your first fight with a real live, Named supervillain! The bad guys can move the balls around, they're either better at it than you are, or the game gives itself 4- and 5-ball matches that it doesn't give you nearly so generously!
I repeat, the bad guys can now deal damage to you directly by matching, PLUS with powers, and can keep getting 4-ball matches which is a Critical Hit, or worse, 5-ball matches, which allows them to take extra turns! I have literally lost a battle I never got to play!

When you or the enemy activate a power, there's a motion-comic of that character doing that action. Punisher's pistol, Storm's lightning-flashes, Iron Man's Repulsor Beam gloves, etc. This is really NOT a game to play if you are photosensitive! However, after you see the same animation the first, say, dozen(?) times, you'll wish there was some way to turn that off!

The sound effects are AMAZING, From lightning to lasers to hammers to ordinary guns, everything sounds about how it should--or at least how we'd expect it to, which isn't necessarily the same thing! Enemies also make a satisfying "whump" when you beat them and they hit the floor.

And then there's AFTER the battle. You get LOOT! Usually "just" ISO-8, but most battles are repeatable to get multiple rewards. The number of rewards you've already gotten vs. the number of rewards available will be conveniently listed when you mouse over the map to choose a battle. 1/4, 3/6, I saw one with 16 possible rewards, to literally keep the player coming back, in a sort of Level Grinding. IMPORTANT NOTE: If the RNG chooses a prize you've already collected, you do not get a second instance of that same prize, you get a "Booby Prize" of 20 ISO-8. Given the price necessary for Leveling up, that's not even cab fare home!
(As mentioned before, this is not Pokemon, you don't Level by fighting, you Level by pouring ISO-8 into your heroes' "fuel tank"--IF your Power Level is high enouogh to sustain more Levels!)
Some of the heavier fights will even give you free Covers, although usually 2-star Covers. This sounds generous, but in order to win (At least win honestly *WINK!*), you have to buy your own Covers, beef up your heroes, only to win a Cover you can't use anymore, as you just maxed out either that power, or the hero already hit the Power Cap of 13, so to "learn" that Cover, you have to de-Level one of your hero's other powers! Or you can sell the redundant Covers, but you won't get much for them.

NOTE: If you cheat yourself up a MESS of Hero Points, and buy 100+ Covers, be forewarned that a lot of them will be the 1&2-star ones, which are obsolete about a week after you start the game. And you have to sell, and confirm you want to sell, EACH AND EVERY ONE INDIVIDUALLY! Despite being very obviously originally made for a mobile device, there is NO way to checkmark a bunch of them and sell them all at once!

More maps are constantly being added and old ones taken away (Not phased out, they just suddenly aren't there anymore!), new heroes are even occasionally added!
There's even PVP, but it's not live, you choose a Team of 3 heroes, and the computer will play them against all comers. Or you can pit your Team against an enemy Team, and get bonus prizes that way. BUT you have to keep buying Hero Points to hopefully get the Covers of the new heroes (And to

This game--played as intended--is clearly INTENDED to constantly siphon money from your wallet to Marvel.
Played the KongHack way, it's a lot more fun, and you can pick it up and drop it whenever you want. Or whenever you forget why you don't play it much anymore?
There are better Marvel offerings out there, but if you like the Puzzle Quest formula, and linear medieval RPG or Space Opera don't appeal to you, this is a good alternative.
(I will NOT say it's the "best refinement" of the Puzzle Quest formula, especially given the aforementioned bad guy cheats. I personally think the first game is, but we can argue that later.)
There are Guilds and Daily Rewards to try to keep you playing (The longer you play, the better the rewards, including 3-star Covers), but this game is best if you remember YOU are the boss. If you want to get addicted to CCGs, there are FAR better ones out there to get addicted to, even other Marvel CCGs!
I still say the best Marvel offering is Marvel Heroes, but there are no cheats yet for that game