My daddy always said, "You get what you pay for!" It's obvious my daddy never played Gods & Heroes.
After a bland introductory video which consisted solely of text fading in over a static background, my experience began on Telchinos, Gods & Heroes' stereotypical starter island. Almost immediately, question mark icons began popping up at the bottom of my screen. I clicked on them, expecting to find some helpful hints, but all I ever got was a blank window. No matter though, the game's controls and gameplay functioned exactly like every other MMO I've ever played. "Familiarity is a good thing," I told myself, warily.
I hired my first two minions (which is not explained well in the game) and completed my duties on Telchinos. I was taken by imaginary ship to my character's vast estate, which was strange, considering the estate was surrounded by impassible mountains. It consisted of five buildings, whose appearance I learned could be upgraded by completing quests.
At my estate's temple, I got to meet my chosen god, who granted me a ridiculously lackluster power. After getting lost in the vast emptiness of my estate, I eventually found my way back to the villa. Upon trying to leave my estate, the game client crashed for the first of many times to come.
When I logged back in, attempting to select that character would completely hang the game, so I created a new character, losing my first 90 minutes of play. Since every character follows roughly the same linear path through the game, I was able to progress much more quickly the second time. I continued my adventures in Alban Hills.
Although it seemed to be mid-morning at my estate, it was clearly midnight in Alban Hills. The scenery was so dark, I could barely see my minion standing beside me, let alone a path to walk on or enemies in my way. After figuring out the clunky chat system, I managed to ask in global chat if this was normal. After about 10 minutes, I got the helpful response that it's only normal 6 out of every 12 hours, and to turn up my gamma slider in the graphics options. The effect only managed to transform the world from completely black to completely grey.
Most frustratingly, it was impossible to find quest objects on the ground, since they had no visual effect to draw my attention. The helpful quest hints on the world map told me I was in the correct location, but I had to drag my cursor across the screen from top to bottom and side to side to discover the tiny objects.
At level 10, I was sent to Rome as part of a quest to receive my second god power. However, it turns out there was a bug with the quest which prevented it from being completed. Two weeks, 20 levels, and several GM petitions later, I still don't have access to any god powers past my first one at level 5.
Speaking of Rome, I expected it to be a hotbed of player activity and a center of commerce. But with no crafting, no auction house, and not even any particular need for items, Gods & Heroes lacks any semblance of economic activity. This is probably a good thing, though, because the game also lacks any semblance of a population. At no point during my two weeks were there ever more than 70 players on the entire server, and I played at prime-time.
Despite my tribe having nearly 100 members, only two or three of us were ever online. I was told most of them simply gave up out of frustration. Without any other functional social tools in the game, this made it very difficult to get a group to do one of the game's five instanced dungeons.
When I finally did get a group for Volcanic Vents, I found the scenery to be nice, although the surrounding area inexplicably dropped the frames per second on my powerhouse system from over 100 to under 10. Once inside, there was no story to the place, the boss mechanics were uninteresting, and the loot was lackluster, when there was any at all. That's right, two of the instance's four bosses dropped absolutely no loot.
I continued my journey through Gods & Heroes by doing almost every quest in every zone in the game. I'm glad I had that experience, because that's honestly all the game has to do. Upon reaching level 30, my only option was a five-player dungeon that no one wanted to run. It seems that an armor class upgrade was intended at level 30, but is unavailable. This left most of the loot from Desertum Hollows and Depths useless to players.
In summary, this might be a good game if all you enjoy is questing for 30 to 40 hours. Even though Gods & Heroes boasts triple-A pricing, it does not deliver triple-A content, activities, or features.