Expected More
Character Creation, just like in CoH character creation is top notch and has plenty of variety and they always add more bells and whistles as the game matures so I'm sure the options here will just get better. I'll just say that it's great as I'm sure we're all familiar with it from CoH, so you won't be disappointed with the character creation.
I'm am currently level 34 and one of the bigger issues so far is the general lack of content. I have run out of missions to level with on multiple occassions. The general issue is there are not enough quests in each level bracket to get you to the next level. You will only be offered quests a max of 3 levels above you. Typically what ends up happening is you level slower than the missions last. For example, you'll be level 10, doing lvl 13 missions, which isn't too bad most of the time far as difficulty, the problem is at certain points you do all the missions available and no more will open up until you hit the next level. It happened to me multiple times but the most frustrating was when I was lvl 31 and had to grind out half the level because there literally were no missions to be done.
Another constant theme in this game seems to be a general lack of direction. They do a very poor job of controlling general flow of the gameplay. It doesn't give you clear notifications when you make notebale milestones. Like when you hit level 15, you unlock a second costume slot. It floats it briefly on your screen with a ton of other messages that you see when you level but never have enough time to read and it doesn't display it in your chat box; so unless you just decide to play around with the tailor you'd never even know you got. Same thing with creating a nemesis; at 25 you can create your arch enemy, not only do they not notify you of this, they don't mention that you can do it at level 25, once you hit 25 they don't direct you to where to go. When you decide to ask around where to go, the place you need to go isn't even marked on the map so you have to hunt and search for the place. I could list more examples but the general idea is game direction is horrible and that's completely just developer error.
Other thing of note is probably the horrible balancing issues and illogical power schemes. If you're looking for PvP in this game, I suggest you look elsewhere. Point of fact there is zero chance that PvP will ever be balance in this game unless they drastically alter the general concept of the current game. As it stands, anyone can take any power from any pool so PvP basically boils down to a bunch of people who either die really fast because their power choices aren't PvP centric or people who can't be killed. Just imagine WoW where every player had the abilities of every class in PvP.
The illogical powers also nag at me, it honestly seems like they created each of these powers independent of one another without any thought as to how they work in conjunction with and compared to other powers. Powers are broken down into categories of type, i.e. AoE, heals, Crow Control, Buffs, etc. At max level you get I believe a total of 14 powers yet you'll likely rarely use more than 3 or 4 total depending on your build. A lot of the powers are redundant and the way they're implemented getting new powers often make old powers obsolete b/c a lot of powers don't have any cool downs. Then there are times where you get access to a later tier power, that's less effective than one you unlocked much earlier. Again, I could go on, suffice to say I just don't know what they were thinking when they came up with the implementation of some of the powers. Don't get me wrong, it makes combat a bit speedier and fun to be able to use your biggest nuke over and over without cooldown or penalty but at a certain point it also makes combat bland and you start to wonder why you have these other powers that you don't even need to use.
This is running long so the last thing I'll touch on is boss encounters. This game has the most bland and lack luster boss encounters of any MMOG ever. MMOG's are supposed to be about cooperation and team work, at least in the later levels. The general strategy for boss fights or tough encounters in this game is to die, run back, fight, die, run back, fight, until the boss is dead. There's no strategy, the role system is a joke so there's no really role defintions, basically it's one big zerg and for any difficult boss all you need is more people to down it. There's no tacitcs, no timing your attacks, no requiring team work, just boring zerg until it's dead.
I could go on about this game as it has a lot of flaws but I'll wrap it up here. I will agree with the gamespot review in saying that at the very least you will most likely get enjoyment out of this game for the free 30 day subscription that comes standard. If you're looking for a long-term replacement for one of your old MMOG loves, I would suggest you look else-where though. I do expect some of these flaws will improve with time but I don't ever see this game becoming something anyone would stay with for the long haul, save the die hard fanboys.