Despite TRULY loving the game, me and my roommate have been talking about how unnervingly neoliberal this representation of Spidey is through the side content. It's a fun thing to joke about but it honestly makes us feel a little bit gross. I don't think there was any ill-intent in the writing of the story and character, but the game doesn't exist in a vacuum and, in this climate, it makes Spider-Man feel like less of a hero of the people.
I just came across an article on Deadspin that shares this exact sentiment:
https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/they-turned-spider-man-into-a-damn-cop-and-it-sucks-1828944087
Highlights:
The writer of the article, like my roommate and I, is still fairly early in the game so maybe it addresses this later, but it feels like it's baked into the themes.
The way it acts as if systematic oppression doesn't exist and every low level criminal is a bad-to-the-core individual who got into crime by choice. Not like every random enemy needs a backstory, but when Spider-Man is saying things like "Drug deals are in my top five worst crimes" (or whatever) and, as mentioned above, "If you just got real jobs you wouldn't have to work so hard at being criminals!" it is said as if it is absolute truth and you have no reason not to believe him.
And
yes, I understand that this is about as much context as any other spider-man game gave in the past, but we are in different times. Games
are political, and this one is occasionally a little more Right than I think it realizes.
Still,
fantastic game and great writing outside of this. But I think it's a message worth discussing.