Let me establish the caveat that I'm reviewing this after a few days of playing; this is more an initial impression than any kind of definitive summary of the entire game. The reason for this is the two week trial period. As I see it, most MMORPGs will get tedious to some extent as time goes on. If you get two weeks of fun out of this game and then stop, it's worth the money. For the subscription to be worthwhile, it has to hook you in enough to keep playing after that. So, this review is geared towards whether the game inspires you to keep playing after the trial is over. Furthermore, I'm coming in to this after playing World of Warcraft for about nine months, so that's my basis for comparison. I've rated the standard game factors, i.e. Gameplay, Sound, etc. below, so here I'm only going to mention MMORPG specific things, such as missions, community and the like. The Good: The character design process is fun on its own merits. You can customize virtually everything about the appearance of your character, which is incredibly satisfying and has the effect of making you immediately attached to it. Playing through the game, even just going from point A to point B, feels heroic. All heroes have a sprint ability and can jump fairly high, both with action-line animations which reinforce the comic book feel. The interface takes some getting used to but isn't overly complex. There aren't extensive travel times and there is a prevalence of villians to fight so the pace keeps up. Enemies seem to react with a degree of intelligence: enemies with powerful ranged attacks will try to stun you or knock you down so they can't retreat to a safe distance; foes which are far below your level will run at the sight of you; enemies don't tend to stray far alone and will bring their friends along if you aggro them. The maps are very immersive, with rooftops, alleys, tunnels and culverts with enemies spread throughout in characteristic places; for instance, evil wizards can sometimes be found in dark alleys or on high rooftops performing some dark ritual, but only at night. Finally, there is something very addictive about the game. I've found myself saying "just one more level" or "I'll just go do this one last mission" pretty often and losing track of time. The Bad: PvP to date is limited to The Arena, an area in one of the starting zones, although with City of Villiains this will expand. The community is somewhat lacking, at least on the server I play, and I have yet to see anything resembling roleplaying, which a lot of people look for, especially as the newness of the game wears off. Gameplay is awkward at times, especially in combat. When you execute an ability it triggers an animation, no matter what it is, which interrupts everything else, including movement. What this results in is chasing a fleeing enemy, stunning him (a lengthy animation), seeing the stun take effect about five seconds later as he runs through a far off group of enemies, and subsequently aggroing the bunch. Oddly, I've often found that letting the enemy run and waiting for him to return will not aggro anything at all, even as he runs straight through a crowd. The level system for mobs is somewhat confusing, as each will have a classification in addition to its level, such as minion or boss, and the two combine to result in its overall difficulty rating which is shown by the color of its name. Soloing seems to be incredibly difficult, as even the beginning instances are set up in such a way that "good" pulls involve three or more mobs, and zones outside of the beginning areas frequently have eight or more mobs in a group. Missions are incredibly repetitive and stealth seems to be pointless, as they tend to involve either killing x mobs of a type outside, clearing buildings and getting an item, or going to talk to someone. Also, much of the action is either scripted animation or text description. An example is one mission involving evil wizards, where you open the secret door to their lair and receive a message informing you that you followed a jewel thief to the location and saw him go inside. There isn't equipment as such, instead there are inspirations (temporary buffs) and enhancements (permanent buffs for powers, sort of like materia from FFVII). Thus there really isn't trade and the monetary system of the game feels pointless. Also, there doesn't appear to be a way to see numerical stats of any kind, so it's difficult to tell what abilities will do what and how effective enhancements are in any clear way. Conclusion: This game was supposedly developed by the team who worked on Diablo, and it shows. Gameplay consists primarily of clicking on an enemy, clicking on powers and buffs, and either winning, losing, or running. Repeatedly. Minor graphic glitches and the feel of the game in general makes it seem incomplete. Even this soon in to the game it lacks the strategy and depth of World of Warcraft. That having been said, the game is fun in a simplistic sort of way, and it does have a certain charm. Hopefully subsequent updates will add some depth and variety to the game, but until then I would steer anyone looking for a really in-depth game away. If you're looking for something to mess around with for an hour or two, however, this fits the bill. You just have to decide whether it's worth the monthly cost.
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