So April 10th has come and gone, and the new characters for Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the Xbox 360 are a no-show, despite the date emblazoned on the preview trailer I posted yesterday. Said trailer has since been pulled from Xbox Live Marketplace.

On top of that, the game forums are filled with folks complaining that the pre-DLC patch has damaged their save games. Nothing far too drastic, mind you, but people are finding that the rare items saved to their characters have had their abilities changed at random.

An Xbox.com forum poster contacted Activision support about the problems, and received this response today:

Thanks for contacting us. Activision is indeed aware of the various issues on Marvel Ultimate Alliance in relation to the recently released game update. We are currently researching a solution, and truly appreciate your patience in this matter. For the purpose of acquiring more information regarding this issue, could you please respond with a precise account of what has occurred to your characters, items, and save game since the update?

No official word from Activision on when the problems will be fixed or indeed when we'll see the new characters available for purchase. As of right now the patch has been removed from Xbox Live, so if you've yet to download it you won't be forced to.

We'll keep an eye out for further information as it becomes available. Michael Fahey

Thanks to Shin Naruto for the tip