Wolverine will be the protagonist in the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine, and fans are expecting a few friendly faces from the X-Men to appear in the game. There is one iconic X-Men character who shouldn't be part of Marvel's Wolverine, as he's far too much of a threat to Wolverine in combat. If Magneto were to appear as a villain, then his victory would be all but assured, as a character with a metal-coated skeleton wouldn't likely last long in a fight against him.
Wolverine debuted in the pages of The Incredible Hulk, but he's best-known as being a member of the X-Men. Wolverine has also had many solo adventures over the years and has even joined other superhero teams. The trailer for Marvel's Wolverine didn't reveal much about the game's story, but if Wolverine is the focal point of the game, then it's more likely that he will face the kinds of enemies he meets in his solo stories, rather than the villains faced by the X-Men.
The trailer for Marvel's Wolverine hinted at being set in Madripoor, which is a location that featured in Wolverine's original solo series. This could be a good sign in a number of ways, but particularly because it suggests the story will be focusing solely on Wolverine, rather than the X-Men as a whole. The X-Men have a rogue's gallery that contains some of the most fearsome villains in the Marvel universe, and if their main villain decided to show up in Marvel's Wolverine, then it would seem like a foregone conclusion that things would end badly for poor Logan.
Wolverine Needs Villains That Are On His Level
The Marvel universe has tiers for its villains. On the top end of the scale, there are cosmic-level threats, like Dark Phoenix and Galactus. The other end of the scale has street-level villains, like Kingpin or Tombstone. Magneto isn't a cosmic-level threat, but he's still one of the most powerful villains on Earth. Magneto is capable of causing natural disasters that can kill untold numbers of people, such as in the Ultimatum event in the Ultimate Marvel universe, as his powers can affect the Earth itself.
In the Batman Arkham and Marvel's Spider-Man games, the heroes face villains on a similar strength level to their own. Batman occasionally faces foes that are much stronger than he is, like Killer Croc in Arkham Asylum, which is similar to Spider-Man's battles with Rhino. The foes they face are still beatable, and it's usually a case of using superior intelligence and agility to overcome the physical strength of the enemy. If Darkseid or Thanos showed up, then the hero isn't going to last very long. This power level difference isn't as much of a concern in a team game, as the Batman could face Darkseid alongside his allies in a Justice League video game, but that's because it's a group of heroes working together to stop one much more powerful foe. There are only a few members of the X-Men who could stand up to Magneto on their own, and Wolverine definitely isn't one of them given his particular weakness to Magneto's powers. Unless there was someone else to help Wolverine out, he'd likely be done for.
Magneto is a villain of the X-Men as a whole, and while it's all but expected that he would show up in any X-Men video games, it would seem like an issue to put him in a solo Wolverine outing. Given the power disparity between the two characters, there would likely need to be plot contrivances that would have to do heavy lifting for such a pairing to work well. Wolverine has plenty of foes that are a better match-up in terms of combat ability, such as Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, or Silver Samurai. The ideal foe for Wolverine is a martial arts or melee weapon-themed villain, which is why The Hand would also make for great lowbie enemies for him to fight in groups. The trailer for the game hints that Wolverine will face the Hulk, which is a good ceiling for the kind of enemies Wolverine can face. The Hulk is incredibly strong, but Wolverine has faced him many times in the comics and lived to tell the tale. Wolverine is durable enough to survive the Hulk's attacks, thanks to his healing factor and adamantium-laced skeleton. By the same token, the Hulk is strong enough to survive an onslaught from Wolverine's claws, making him potentially an ideal final boss encounter.
Magneto Counters Wolverine Too Much
The reason Magneto is far more of a threat to Wolverine than some of the other powerful X-Men villains (like Apocalypse or Juggernaut) is the nature of his powers. Any character who wears metal on their costume or uses a metal weapon will have trouble facing Magneto. The trailer for Marvel's Wolverine confirmed that Wolverine, as most would expect, has his iconic metal claws. But as obvious as it might seem, this distinction needs to be made, as Magneto ripped the adamantium off Wolverine's skeleton in the comics, almost killing him in the process. This led to a period of time when Wolverine had bone claws, which was a surprise to him, as he had always assumed the metal claws were implants.
Magneto's control over metal means that, without some sort of narrative additions, he can shut Wolverine down in a second. Magneto's presence might work as part of a series-long storyline, where he rips out Wolverine's adamantium at the end of one game, leading to a sequel where bone-claw Wolverine comes back for revenge, but he's too strong to be used as a regular boss encounter. As it stands, Magneto poses too much of a threat to Wolverine in Marvel's Wolverine, and his presence would likely overshadow the gameplay experience. One thing that the Arkham games and Marvel's Spider-Man do incredibly well is making the player feel as if they're controlling Batman and Spider-Man. A Wolverine game where Magneto is able to lord that kind of power over Logan, and thereby over the player, would seem to take too much away from the experience.