Marvel is moving its way onto Facebook with today’s announcement of Marvel: Avengers Alliance, a unique combat role playing game experience with dozens of Marvel's most iconic heroes and villains. Marvel: Avengers Alliance will be live on Facebook Q1 2012 from Disney Interactive Media Group's Playdom studios.

Marvel: Avengers Alliance takes place in the wake of a galaxy-wide disaster, known as "the Pulse,” exposing Manhattan to attack from Marvel’s most formidable villains.  This is a new storyline for the Marvel Universe, created specifically for the game.

Players are recruited as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and tasked with assembling and leading teams of superheroes to keep New York City safe from the clutches of villains like Doom, Loki, the Red Skull and Magneto, as well as holding off the forces of organisations of AIM and Hydra. Marvel: Avengers Alliance will give players the chance to build an unstoppable Marvel team from iconic Marvel characters, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow and many more.

Playdom and Marvel actually were developing the game before Disney's acquisitions. "With all these interesting confluences, we knew this product had to be different," says Mike Rubinelli of Disney Interactive Media Group. It "couldn't just be a casual click-fest."

The developers aim to attract fans of Marvel comics and films (including The Avengers, due May 4). "We want to reach a mainstream audience but keep the world and intellectual property authentic so the core audience is not alienated," says Playdom's Chia Chin Lee.

At the outset of the game, players learn to customise their character with accessories and weapons, and are instructed in battle. "That character will go right into the game and fight alongside Spider-Man or Thor and Black Widow," Jefferson says. "We want to make the game approachable."

Once a hero is added to the Avengers team, players can begin training them to unlock unique abilities and attacks, as well as using "ISO-8" to further customise each character's stats. Players will also be able to face-off against each other, challenging their social graph in super-powered asynchronous PvP battles.

You can check out the official Facebook page at Facebook.com/AvengersAlliance and watch the trailer below. We can certainly tell that this game is going to be huge, so stay tuned for more news!