Thor is one of the more straightforward superheroes in Marvel's expansive catalogue. Son of Odin, the allfather and ruler of of Asgard, Thor has no alter-ego or mysterious origin story. He's a god, who comes from a realm of gods, and who likes to hit things with a big hammer.

However, Gameloft's free-to-play brawler Thor: The Dark World - The Official Game is anything but straightforward. In this messy top-down smash-'em-up, our hero's combat prowess is sidelined in favour of managing suicidal support troops and bashing inanimate crystals.

You see, Thor does not face the hordes of Jotuns and Dark Elves alone. In most of the game's short missions, he is accompanied by a customisable squad of Asgardian warriors. As well as bringing the hammer down on your foes personally, you can summon these support troops at intervals to lay into the enemy.

There are seven types of warrior, including archers and lance wielders. Before each battle you can choose which class of unit you want to back you up. You can also select a hero to watch your back, though these units have cooldown periods.

What this mean in practical terms is that there's often a lot of characters onscreen at any one time, all of who automatically go tearing towards one another with a flagrant disregard for tactical naunce and self-preservation. While you can order your troops to regroup every minute or so - they spawn at the beginning of every stage and have to charge through the level to catch-up - you cannot micromanage their attacks.

However, though it is frustrating to see allies barrelling mindlessly though fire traps because they refuse to wait for you to deactivate them, you have enough trouble getting Thor to do what he's told without worrying about rallying the troops.

The context sensitive control scheme - which has tapping on enemies and terrain to move and attack - is laggy and woefully unrefined. Attempt to attack the crystals which power doors and traps, and Thor will inevitably position himself of the side of the crystal which is being scorched with flame. And, as there are no combos to learn, scuffles are visually incoherent dogpiles powered by frantic, directionless tapping.

Plus, as you cannot block and health potions are ludicrously expensive, melee combat is often preclusively dangerous to engage in. To complete levels without dropping coin on one of the game's three currencies - yes, Thor: The Dark World has three virtual currencies - we found the best tactic was to let our Asgardian grunts handle most of the hand-to-hand, while Thor stood on the edge of the fight lobbing his hammer and launching the odd lightning attack.

Though this fighting style proved fairly effective, is was neither fun nor empowering, and left us with little desire to return to the field of battle.

You can upgrade everything - weapons, costumes, support troops - but the upgrades are cynically overpriced. Worst of all, they do nothing to remedy the game's awkward controls and confused combat, leaving Thor: The Dark World an unworthy addition to mythology of its namesake.