After almost a year of waiting, I received my Avengers Assembled 10-Disc Blu-ray set and, to my surprise, It was worth the wait. And while the DVDs are obviously the centerpiece of the set, the extras are why fans like me shelled out a few extra bucks. But are the extras worth it?

Between the HD-quality streaming and digital download options, any movie that I actually want to watch more than once I’m likely to stream or buy a digital version. Amazon, Netflix streaming, and a few other services amply feed my media consumption, so I rarely feel the need to purchase a physical DVD anymore.

The Avengers collector’s set was obviously meant for fans who want some exclusive goodies, but without a cosplay price tag. Unboxing the set, you’re eyes feast on a chromed SHIELD briefcase. The cheap plastic of the case, non-functional clasps, and a handle that is too short to fit any but a child’s fingers all somewhat take away from the overall experience. But at the price point, it’s still nice packaging. And a button under the handle lights up the center circle of the case which is a nice touch.

Opening the case reveals a light-up Tesseract cube set within a plastic tray. Again, it’s the details that take away from the experience: The plastic Tesseract cube’s batteries were dead and the flimsy tray popped out when I removed the DVDs. I replaced the tray easily enough, however, and I was able to replace the button batteries in the cube (though it proved to be rather temperamental to get to flash, requiring several violent smacks to activate).

The set is definitely not designed to be treated roughly like, say, by kids. Thankfully, mine have had lots of practice and know to stay away from other attractive toys like Daddy’s Lego sets, Daddy’s RC cars, and Daddy’s Transformers.

Fortunately, the four dossiers on Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor make up for the shortcomings of the rest of the set. Included within each are memorabilia and trinkets fans will instantly recognize from each of the movies. The plentiful contents of each folder will provide plenty of enjoyable perusing.

The fifth folder is a SHIELD file with information about the Tesseract itself. It also includes personnel files on Black Widow and Hawkeye. A sealed envelope contains an access card and decoder lens that, once I found the report that matched it, revealed a message pointing me to a website. Thinking it was going to provide exclusive downloads or perhaps an augmented reality game (similar to what the show Lost did a few years back), I immediately logged on (using the access code on the card). The site currently only contains a video preview of Phase 2 of the Avengers franchise, which looks to be every bit as good (if not better) than Phase 1. I hope Marvel has plans to build out the site further, since it has the potential to rally fans before each of the new movies is released.

So does exclusive collectible memorabilia make buying physical media more attractive? Or is DVD publishing doomed to the history books along with 8-tracks and Laserdisc?