People hate Marvel because they make stupid decisions when playing the game. The thing that people don’t realize about Capcom games in general is that their incredibly strategy based. Even for fast games like Marvel, strategy and decision making is far more important than combos. In SF2 to SFIV, to Alpha 3, to everything, this is just the case. A lot of newer games are mainly freestyle games, converting hits into damage, abare and such. But Capcom games are very good about having you manage your resources by making the biggest resources something you can only do one per match.
In SSFIV, there are many ultras that are free escapes out of pressure. For example, Bison’s nightmare scissor ultra helps him escape pressure situations. But keep in mind he can probably only use it once. And since Bison’s damage is overall low, he loses his only high damage option. Getting the second ultra is highly unlikely if not impossible, so if he loses it, he loses a big advantage in a lot of matches.
Xfactor is pretty much like the super you can really only use once. Except it’s a hard coded limitation. You literally can’t activate 5 X-factors in a match. So if you use your X-Factor early, then you pretty much lose. That is why this decision making is important, because now that the X-factor is gone you may find yourself pressured, or you may find it hard to land a clean hit.
I like Marvel when people bother to build a team based on a gameplan or strategy. While other games have it, I really do think the gameplan can be mult-tiered. For example in CVS2, while you did have a concept of a battery character, your middle character (who had a solid game plan and didn’t need to use meter) and an anchor (who has insane damage, but may require the most meter to be scary), this had to be done sequentially. Meaning if your opponent put Sagat in third place, and you know that Sagat is the biggest problem on his team, you have to beat his other 2 team mates to get there.
Marvel makes this same strategy more interesting with assist and snapouts. If your character is running Wesker last to get Dark Wesker XF lvl3, then you can get a clean hit on his point character and snap in Wesker and try to kill him. You can also do what I do and build a team around chip damage. So when my opponent can’t get in and don’t want to eat chip, they activate Xfactor early, making me less likely to deal with herp derp lvl3 later down the line.
There is a lot of creativity in Marvel and high damage makes that creativity work. If I snapped in Wesker, ran a mixup, what is the point when I’m only going to do a miniscule 15% damage and I had to have all the dexterity in the world to land the mixup and combo? It doesn’t. At that point you shouldn’t have worried about snapping him in in the first place. And at this point dark Wesker is coming out no matter what you do. You can say you can run a 3rd or 4th or 5th mixup, but he has a high probability of blocking those mixups at some point and possibly escaping.
Remember meter is SO important in Marvel. The issue people have in Marvel is that they don't have the freedom to just do what they want. If you activate Xfactor early to save your first character, then you're going to have issues down the line. I have a friend who hates Marvel, but he makes a lot of poor decisions in Marvel as well. For example he doesn't have a team that's based on an anchor, someone who builds meter, or even has a strong assist. His team is built around characters he likes and what combos he wants to do. When I zone him out with Dorm, and he has to block a tons of chip trying to get in, he now feels he's forced to burn his Xfactor early.
Marvel does have randomness, but only in certain situtions and at certain ranges. If Wesker (whom I consider to have a huge amount of randomness built into him) is across the screen, he has less damage he can do. At that point he NEEDs an assist to make full screen gameplay worth it. Otherwise need needs to get in. So my gameplan is to prevent him from getting in to prevent random buttons he may press that can turn into big damage. Marvel is about randomness elimination. That’s why strong mixups are important in this game. If me and my opponent ran at each other linearly, then the game would be super random. But since there is different movment options, then now I have to setup my offense. If he wants to call a beam assist across the screen, I can counter that assist durability, or counter his projectile game with a angled projectile.
People don't think about Marvel (or games period) in depth. That is why guys like Viscant (who has bad execution but superb strategy and analysis) win in these games. If the game was newb friendly, a guy like Viscant couln't win because strategy is not in a newb vocabulary. People see marvel and think it's just a showcase for their cool and neat combo, and that tends to become the focus. When they can't do that, or they constantly put themselves in situations where they can be randomed out, then they complain. Obviously you must eliminate that randomness options from their team. People don't apply that strategy to that game, which is why people like me (who suck at the game) can still beat people who put way more time in.