DCUO combat is amazing and makes WOW combat seem primitive, ancient, and lacking!
I spent the most time playing Everquest ( 5 years ) and World of Warcraft (6 years and going). When I played EQ it was the best 3d mmo on the market and I only quit when WoW was released, for obvious reasons. By then EQ lost alot of its player base, and Sony refused to update it to keep it competitive.
I have probably put more energy into Everquest and WoW than anything else in life, which I know is sad but I also know there are other people out there with the same problem as me. Some might consider it a blessing lol, /shrug.
The reason I mentioned my past experience is because I want you to know that I know what makes an MMO good.
DCUO brings something to the world of MMO's that has never existed before. FAST PACED ARCADE STYLE COMBAT THAT REQUIRES SKILL, to a game full of items, quests, and tons of BOSSES that will remind you of the old world bosses of Everquest 1.
THEY WILL RIP YOU TO PIECES. YOU WILL DIE ALOT IN DCUO.
I have not played it for the PC, nor would I recommend the PC version. This game was designed with the console in mind, and once you kill your first mob you will know you have found something special. The PS3 controller works great with this game, and each talent tree has different combos that are not easy to pull off well when you first start playing. The combos are button sequences that include sometimes clicking a few times and other times holding buttons down.
The mechanics of the game are similar to wow and eq in that you need people who know how to play their class role well to win. You are NOT going to steamroll your way through this game without dying alot as you learn how to play. It is not a grind - you get good xp from quests, and should avoid grinding as it isn't very productive.
There are cues just like in wow for everything you could want to do, and it all starts on level 9.
The combat in this game is so fun compared to WOW, everyone can block, and cast abilities to break blocks.
At level 23 I am proud to say my fire tank is doing great damage, and casts very cool looking spells. The dungeon I cued for last night "Oolong Island" had a boss in it that wiped my group about 6 times. Finally we got him, and let me tell you, I don't even get that feeling when I down new bosses in Cataclysm (yes I still raid in wow).
But thats it, for the rest of my wow career, I will only be raiding with my guild. Thats right, DCUO has more content than Cata, and is just downright more thrilling.
The way this game works is that you pick a power, weapon skill, and flight skill in the beginning. Powers do tons of damage, but use tons of mana. Weapon attacks bring back mana. Combos bring back more mana. You have to balance your weapon strikes and power attacks in order to recycle enough energy to keep going. If you play poorly you may die to 2 or 3 regular mobs. If you play well, and use your combos and abilities at the right time, you can kill 5-10 mobs at once and maybe even more.
It feels great to smack a mob, set it on fire, or knock it down. It isn't like wow where every mob feels the same. In DCUO the world mobs will give you alot of trouble unlike the boring trash in wow poses no challenge except for the rare elite quest.
Everyone I know or have heard of that has tried DCUO on PS3 loves it, and many of them are taking a break from wow.
The pvp is like totally awesome because world pvp is abundant, and there are LOTS of street fights if you are on a pvp server.
Another example - my lvl 23 fire tank took about 10 minutes to kill an elite lvl 13 world boss named The Avatar of Sin. I really had to manage my resources to keep my heals going, and several times I almost died. My lvl 17 friend died 5 times and kept having to run back. Thats the kind of game this is - you never know when a super powerful named mob will require some serious effort - effort that requires team work if the mobs is on your level.
There are tons of short quest instances with bosses, and you can take friends in there with you to help if you want.
DCUO also includes hard modes for the maximum level, which I hear cannot be won without a good and experienced team that knows what its doing. After what I saw on Oolong Island, I believe it.
The armor in this game looks better than any other MMO to date, and you can customize it far beyond what any other MMO can do either.
Whats wrong with DCUO? The chat system is a pain, and the user interface is ghetto. WHO CARES? The combat is so dumb fun and challenging I could care less about the menus. They are not horrible - just not fast or pretty.
Once you collect an item in DCUO, you can keep that look forever and switch back to it any time you want, for any item slot. Imagine if in WOW you could equip an item level 359 epic weapon, but have tho choice to show the graphic of the legendary you worked so hard for on 60. You can make it look like you are wearing any armor you have previously collected in the past, all the while really equipping the best gear in the game.
The movement is good, the combat is amazing ( best in any mmo I have played) and I am just honestly shocked at how much I like this game. My brother is a cynical and skeptical gamer, but an amazing one. He is the kind of guy who memorized every 30 hit combo in tekken, and he played an amazing bard in Everquest that knew more glory on that toon than most ever see or hear about. After playing DCUO on our 200 inch screen in the media room, he silently went back to his apartment in Austin and bought it without saying a word.
If you play this game on ps3, if you like action and are sick and tired of blizzard recycling old content, you have my guarantee that this game will remind you of how you felt the first time you played eq or wow. That old feeling is back. The feeling that I don't know what I am doing, I currently suck, but I really want to figure out how this works and dominate!
Cataclysm is making it so everyone can buy epics with justice points in 4.1. I guess all that time you spent grinding 346 blues was a waste of time - big surprise. All blizzard is going to do is release content that makes the hardcore raiders feel dumb for spending 30 hours a week raiding.
I play MMO's for the combat experience, purely to increase my own power and destroy everything in my path. And it can easily be said, that the combat in wow is dull compared to DCUO. WOW has become too predictable in that the game no longer offers surprised of any kind.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that if you like trade skills, or the social aspect of wow - then keep playing wow. DCUO only has one thing that makes it awesome - the pve and pvp content. But that is all it needs in my book.
Well, I need to go play some DCUO now. I literally feel an urge to play, now the only problem is getting my gf to quit wow (yeah right) lol. She would rather spend time making flying carpets I suppose.