Finally someone else is enjoying the game!! I was really beginning to feel like that one in every crowd. Your right, there is a use for every spell in the game even later on. Fire arrow doesn't do any damage but it can easily be steered around an enemy to hit something behind them or it can be used to quickly fill up your adrenaline meter. Combat it difficult to start with. My best advice to anyone who is struggling is to parry more than you swing when getting started. If you're surrounded get out a staff and start swinging. Once the bad guys are stunned kick a few away and knock one down. Kill the one closest to you and whip out a sword. Impale the next one if you can or ready a power strike. Knock that guy down again and then go for the other. Just remember, parrying is most often the key to success. When I first started I was all offense, I got my ass kicked left and right. Parry, run, use potions and traps, knock enemies down, or use stealth or magic. The combat in this game can really take some thought, that’s why it’s so much damn fun! I'm not saying that you need to prepare a thesis on the mechanics of combat and martial arts in order to be successful and enjoy the game. Just use your brain, take your time, and have fun. I can't stress this enough, parry your enemy’s blows, kick them, and use a power strike to knock them down. I rarely use flurry of blows when fighting humanoid enemies; maybe just to shave off a few hit points but nothing more. Save flurry of blows for the face huggers, and spiders. Combat is only repetitive if you make it that way. Hell oblivion's spells were repetitive, every offensive fire, ice, and lightning spell looked the same. Combat was a snooze fest, and stealth was a joke. I love Oblivion just as much as the next guy, but honestly, combat in that game was shallow and boring by comparison. Every game with a first person perspective has the same general combat mechanic throughout the entire game. Perhaps the PC can gain perks, stances, styles, weapons, moves, abilities, etc. but the core is always there; see bad guy, use means of destruction at disposal, make bad guy a dead/unconscious bad guy. It's just that some games offer a larger and more varied menu of said means of destruction than others. I know that the story sucks, I've already lost track of how many times I told Xana to stuff a friggin sock in it. Yes the technical issues are present and very annoying, but for the love of god this is a good game. What happens when the technical issues are ironed out? We'll have an outstanding first person sworder, with a transparent run of the mill story. To say that this game is garbage is far too harsh, when taken out of the context of the M&M universe we get a solid game the sets a new standard in FP melee combat. All I would like to see would be a more diverse selection of spells, a better, well planned story, less bugs at release, guards that don't always scream out "Hey Pal” and voice acting that doesn't compete in the same bracket as the porn actor’s guild.