I don't know that anyone should be saying CoX may be playable again in the near future, because nobody knows if it ever will to be honest.
There is a group that has been trying for a year and a half to lease the old CoX IP to add its lore references to other superhero MMOs that are being developed. Within these talks, that same group has also been trying all this time to lease a server snapshot of CoX from the night of the shutdown. But things are going at a glacially slow pace, and it's far from certain if they will ever succeed.
Your best bet is to sign up for the "Wake me up when there's news" auto-email that is pinned at the top of this very Task Force Hail Mary subforum; that way, if anyone ever does succeed at either venture, you will be alerted via email.
Until that day comes if it ever does, you should check out Paragon Chat!
Paragon Chat is a CoH-map-based Chat program that members of this board have put together, that is available now and has its own section on these forums.