Is Marvel's Spider-Man 2 PS5 worth its full price?

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is easily one of, if not the biggest release of 2023. The game even became the highest-selling PlayStation title within the first 24 hours of its release, selling over 2.5 million copies worldwide. The sales numbers for the sequel are even more surprising, considering it was released exclusively for the PlayStation 5.

However, before the game's launch, there had been many discussions online regarding the sequel's rumored runtime and how it stacks against its premium $70 pricing. Akin to some of the more linear action-adventure games, especially the ones exclusive to PlayStation, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 takes roughly 15 to 20 hours to complete.

And if you're going for the Platinum trophy, then you're looking at around 30 to 35 hours of playtime on the standard (Amazing) difficulty setting. However, with most games nowadays boasting 100+ hours of content, without even including features like "New Game+," is Marvel's Spider-Man 2 worth its full asking price of $70?

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.

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Does Marvel's Spider-Man 2 justify its $70 price tag, despite its brief runtime?

I find the debate surrounding Marvel's Spider-Man 2's brief runtime, with respect to its premium asking price, to be a bit overblown. This is especially considering the previous two titles in the series weren't exactly that massive to begin with. The original Marvel's Spider-Man's base game was roughly 20 hours long, with the DLCs taking it to 30 hours.

And the Miles Morales spin-off that was released in 2020 is around 8 to 12 hours long, with 15 hours being the time that it usually takes to get the Platinum trophy for that title. Insomniac has always focused on crafting brief and super engaging single-player titles, which are devoid of any filler or content padding more often than not.

Games have always been a matter of subjectiveness, especially when it comes to their price-to-content ratio. For some players spending upwards of $60 on a game with 20-30 hours of campaign with limited replayability is not worth it. For others, a quality single-player experience regardless of how short its runtime may be is totally worth paying the premium for.

I, for one, will easily take a focused and brief single-player title over a 100+ hours long checklist-driven open-world experience. However, I do understand that many players will find spending $60 or $70 on a game that has a limited supply of content a bit of a tough pill to swallow.

As such, questions like whether Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is worth the $70 asking price, can never truly have an objective answer to it. While I do think the $70 asking price is very much worth it for Insomniac Games' latest Spider-Man game, I also acknowledge that might not be the case for everyone out there. And you know what, that's perfectly fine.