Nothing like the gamespot review. Ideal for casual gamers with friends who want a new game to play together
The most confusing thing is money - there seem to be 3 types. Normal money which is used when you buy or sell with other players and which you tend to have lots of. Then there's a second type you only get from missions which the more expensive items in the shops need. Then there's a 3rd type which is basically a short cut for those who want to pay real money and can be used to buy any of the best gear in the game instantly.
Levelling is pretty easy. You get the full set of skills by level 30 which shouldn't take more then a few weeks to reach with elite agent. There's a few items that unlock later but nothing huge.
There's a starting area where you can wander around doing simple little missions (with friends if you wish) getting XP. This will take you out of the noobie levels safely and easily.
The skill upgrades are small, as are the special weapon upgrades - e.g. if a basic weapon does 100 damage, the best weapon of that type in the game only does about 125. Sure you can grind for ages to get one, but most people can quickly afford something not too far off the best. This means unlike the gamespot review PvP is not something for ultra high level leets - I have had no problem scoring well since I started playing it despite not being a high level.
Both the pvp and pve are fun. PvP is pretty easy to get into. The simplest is mercenary where you click to join and the game automatically puts you into class balanced 8 v 8 sides with a number of different game types (normally one is randomly picked). It's a bit like 3rd person TF2. If you have friends then you can team up with two of them so when you start a game like this you all start on the same team.
Pve is also pretty good. It involves 4 player teams (although you can solo if you really want) taking on a 15 minute mission to fight your way though some area then take on the big baddy at the end. You join a queue and the game automatically puts you into a balanced team and off you go. Like PvP if you have friends it'll put you all in the same game. As you level up you can try harder and harder variants of this.
The only real grinding is if you want to craft, which in this game means weapon and armour mods which have a small effect on your guns. However this is unnecessary if you can't be bothered because there's an auction house built in to the game. Using this you can do two things (a) sell your bits of junk using in crafting for large amounts of cash as it's required by all those people crafting and hence (b) just buy the mods (even the best) from the auction which those who can craft put on to make cash.
All in all it's a great little game, well tweaked and balanced now, that me and my friends have had a lot of fun playing through it together. Have a go!