Avengers also had an already developed villain. It just added another threat working with him.

While Ultron himself never felt unstoppable, his final plan actually had me curious how the Avengers would stop it without massive casualties.  The challenge is making the threat real while showing off how awesome the heroes are.  Hence Loki and Ultron had armies that the heroes can beat up.

I never watched Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so I was surprised when a friend told me that the movie was continued from that show. I guess I have to start watching it.

I that's the case, the fact the UK is behind by a few weeks would confuse things. This said, it's not very good.

Just saw it and it was a really fun movie. Ultimately, there were a few too many things going on in the movie, and there wasn't enough time to develop all the new characters they were creating and pay enough attention to all of the older ones. I like how the characters that weren't in solo movies (Hawkeye, Hulk, and Widow) got more time in the limelight than in the last film. Quicksilver sort of got the short end of the stick, without much reason to care about him.

It actually did a fairly good job, intentional or otherwise, of capturing the feel of Marvel's big events. Those are often crowded affairs that rely as much on the audiences prior knowledge as exposition.

With regards to the climactic battle, Avengers and AoU shared an uncomfortable amount in common. 

Granted, it's pretty much a given this is how both films would resolve, and furthermore, it's an easy argument that this is what audiences really wanted to see as their reward for the two hour build up to the climactic battle, but it does bring up the question as to whether any of these team films of Ultimate Heroes can end without them having to battle an army against overwhelming numerical odds.

If the MCU writers follow the blueprint of the Infinity Gauntlet, we should be seeing the exact opposite in Infinity War; Thanos individually defeating all the MCU heroes with relative ease wielding the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. 

@The Fury:
Actually i really like season 2 of AoS.
Because i'd had to wait until next year for season 2 i watch it online. And because of the earlier Age of Ultron EU start the series was a week behind.

Do you need to watch it? Not neccessarily. But explains stuff like where Fury got his helicarrier a little. Interference between movie and series is not that big though.

I loved it to, I thought it was better than the first, though it did have a few niggly things. I also thought the Avengers Quicksilver was done way better than the X-Men one.

But it there is a 3 and a half hour version out there (rumour) and they showed that now I would be straight back to see it.

I do agree with some of the criticism though, the Black Widow/Hulk romance, how Ultron was created (though I dont mind it being Tony, I would have rather they kept it with Hank Pym). 

Two entirely different takes on a fun character. The MCU version was far more developed and relevant to the overall plot and development of the other characters, but the Fox version was a lot more fun with one of the most memorable scenes in DoFP.

There was a lot of friction/dissent between Wheedon and Marvel Studios when it came to the editing process; I can understand the need to streamline things for theatrical audiences, but I do look forward to seeing what was cut out in the interest of time in the BD release. 

As for Ultron, I totally understand why they went with the direction they chose; Hank Pym hadn't been introduced and Stark was already on track to developing his own vision of a secure future for humanity going back to Iron Man 3. With Pym, writers would have had to dump a lot of new information on viewers as they introduced a vital new character to the MCU. And this is why we have Scott Lang as Ant-Man rather than Pym. 

Couple of things: when did stark rebuild all of his suits from iron man 3? And why wasn't war machine wearing red white and blue iron patriot colors?