Early impressions. A good mix of boring and great fun.
Shortly: (I'll try not to spoil to much)
In classic RPG style you start up creating a caracter. A good cration tool with almost unlimited apperance, and a lot of skill options. You can also change appairance on your spacecraft and character later on.
The game start up in a training area where you have to deal with som Borg invaders, and wery soon you are the captain of your own ship. The big universe opens up. Strangly you never feel alone in this waste place due to some nifty instancing. When travelling you travel on a "map" where lightyears are only seconds away. Then you warp into sectors and sones from the map. all containing missions like space combat, and away missions down on planets, stations or other spaceships. There's a lot of content early in the game. And hopefully it stays that way later on. Its possible to play most of early content solo, but its absolutly a game you want to share with some friends. Some open instances you share with others even if your not in a party with them. Kinda like in Warhammer Online for those who know it.
I will not spoil any more of the content, because the content as far as I've seen it is kinda entertaining and has good variation.
To sum it up a little:
Is it a action game: yes, but a very laid back slow pasted one. both space battle and the classic 3rd person ground missions tends to feels a little dased. lets call it relaxing action. This can actually bee a nice thing when you get used to it:)
Is it revolutionary: No. Dont expect to be breathtaken. Music, graphics, missions and gameplay are pretty in lack of other words OK. nothing more nothing less. Its fine at what it is.
Is it challenging: Gameplay are easy accessable. Most missions and space combat, as long as you team up with a mate, seams rather easy to complete.
This might be good for different ages of trek fans. But for the experienced player its not as challenging as I hoped for. Anyhow theres a lot of fun and many missions has good content. You somtimes feel that what you do makes sense, rather than just kill this and that.
Conclution:
I fear this game soon will get to boring to contain a large player base. If you look for a interstellar space game with a lot of depth, you have in my opinion better options in X3 or EVE.
The gameplay is after the first hour of curiosness wery similar to almost all other large mmo titles out there.If you look for a classic mmo in another setting than the dark ages, or just have waited for a Star Trek MMO then go for it. Its fun after all.
Even tough STO is a space exploration game, you kinda feel its all been explored before. The boldly go where no man has ever gone before is ...not more than almost there. But dont mind me, It's still Star Trek and I'm sure many trekkis will love it. Its worth a shot, and maybe you will love it, maybe you will hate it. At least you have tried it. By all means I think its a good game, and a fun game. The only problem is that these days there is a lot of good titles out there, and Im not sertain that this is the best one...yet.
Feel free to convince me otherwise, I really had great expectations about this game. And now I just think its an OK game among many great games.
Engage!