I never got all the hate CO players get.
It's perfectly fine to love an inferior game.
And then you'd wonder why people in Zone Chat would start making smart remarks about COX... ;-)
Honestly, there are lots of things that CO did head and shoulders better than COX.
Travel powers, for example. You can choose one to complement your powerset if you like. A tech character could use a flying platform, metal retractable wings, rocket boots, jump boots, or an energy sphere if he wanted a theme-compliant means of locomotion. There are electric travel powers, fire travel powers, ice travel powers, etc.
The character creator does take some getting used to, but you can do things with it that you'd never be able to accomplish in COX. The faces may not vary as much as those in COX's, but you can mess with body proportions in ways you couldn't dream of in COX. You can do credible-looking gorillas, headless characters ... things that look like they popped out of some whacked out cartoon or anime. My most favorite character in CO right now, Robot Rex the Cowboy, has a cowboy hat on top of his metallic head. In COX, I would not have been able to give him a cowboy hat without also having to give him hair.
In terms of powers, it has some interesting ones ... though not nearly as many as COX had. Several powers have a growth factor ... meaning your character can grow in size during battle. The Sorcery powers are visually interesting. The Bestial Supernatural powers were fun to me in a way that Claws never were in COX.
That's not to say it's perfect. Controls are virtually useless and non existent compared to what we had in COX. Flavored melee powers-- dark, electric, fire-- aren't really there in CO. The pets aren't nearly as good as what we had in COX.
And CO badly needs more content than it's gotten since I've been playing the last two years.
But there are lots of things I enjoy about CO, and I don't consider it inferior to COX. Just different, and sadly neglected.
That being said, even if COX comes back I don't see myself totally abandoning the Cryptic games I'm playing now. I will never let one game be my sole focus after what happened to COX.