Decent, but not worth the overwhelming amount of hype

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2018)

10 years and 18 previous Marvel films have led up to this moment. Some of the preceding films were better than others but the ensemble of characters have been established for us nonetheless.
Thanos (played by Josh Brolin) is the villain of the piece, and against my expectations, he's actually fleshed out really well as a character. From the fleeting glimpses of him we saw in some of the earlier films, he didn't really leave much of an impression, which caused me to fear that he would be bland and one-note like a selection of some of the other Marvel villains. But, no, he's given depth, motivation and they make him somewhat understandable.
So, as the title and premise suggests, Thanos is on an intergalactic conquest to acquire all six Infinity Stones to power his gauntlet so that he can decimate the universe, for the sake of 'balance.' Makes sense in a very twisted way, but he's still a madman.
Meanwhile, the Avengers slowly but surely get made aware of the threat and band together, albeit in different groups, relative to their locations and circumstances. Each group have either the possession or the knowledge of at least one Infinity Stone, so Thanos dispatches his minions of the Black Order to retrieve them for him.
Also, side note: Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw (Squidward), good god, he is brilliant!! Perhaps I'm biased because I'm also Irish and I loved him in Love/Hate, but he is such an underrated actor.
But getting back to the topic of how the story is laid out, and this is one major gripe I had with the film: it is cluttered as hell!! Don't get me wrong, I know how difficult it is to incorporate 20+ main heroes into one film, but the constant jumping back and forth between subplots makes you constantly have to remind yourself what happened to the previous group.
The characters work well off one another and there are a couple of funny lines, but some of our heroes were either underdeveloped or out of character. For instance, Star-Lord. I know that he's been shown to be juvenile and immature in a funny way in previous films, but he comes across as an insecure, impulsive joke here. There's a pivotal moment in the film where he single-handedly ruins a plan in motion, that could've ended the threat for our heroes.
The action scenes are fairly decent. The Wakandan battle scene was very well captured, in my opinion. I've probably become desensitized to these superhero action films, merely because of the sheer frequency I've looked at similar looking battles, but for the first time, we're shown a Marvel film with ACTUAL STAKES! No spoilers, but for the last five minutes of the film, my facial expression was frozen to one of absolute shock, which is a first for me. They've given us a decent cliffhanger for the next film, at least.
So yeah, generally, it's a competently produced film. The Russo Brothers continue to do a good job in the MCU. The drawback for me was the pacing and the jumping between the different groups.
(Also, mild spoiler: What the hell was Peter Dinklage doing?! I full-on laughed at every one of his scenes. His accent as that character was ridiculous and kinda ruined my suspension of disbelief)
Not the best Marvel film for me, but it's in my top 10, at least.