I played for about two months, then flamed out.
PROs:
- The graphics, sounds and controls are all top-notch, and I didn't notice any glaring bugs.
- The stories and puzzles in the low levels are creative, unique, and require lots of thought, intuitive guessing, or a guide.
- you can buy ALL the powers on one character and switch between different builds any time (with very tolerable cool-down rules)
- Combat mechanics and movements are very similar to CoH.
- Motorcycles! Although this is really just "sprint 6" with different graphics. If riding hogs is not your thing, you can use "sprint 6" and not lose any speed.
- It's free to play, and there's nothing you really need to spend real money on to play the game (and there are no significant pay-to-win items either)
- They have a published API that allows user-written extensions for many functions. You can download (or create) add-ons that have access to everything except attacks and movements. The exisintg crafting and battle stats add-ons are very nice, and the auto-bracelet-switcher is a life-saver (see below about bracelets).
- Most of the content can be done solo. The exceptions are the dungeons and hazard zones, but none of these are required to progress.
CONSs:
- the costumes are very limited to start, and too many options must be purchased (either game currency or real money). But look what I'm comparing it to... The best there ever was...
- the "ability points" and "skill points" curve is VERY steep. When you get to 50% of the abilities or skills (count wise -- this is the number you see), you'll think you are progressing nicely, then realize you only have 3% of them point-wise. This is just the typical MMO achievement curve (the further you go it requires more time/effort/cost for the next step), but it's exaggerated too much. And there are hidden things you unlock later that are even worse (augments, shields, auxiliary weapons and skills).
- the end game is definitely a gear grind, with folks repeating the easiest 3 or 4 dungeons over and over in order to get gear and upgrade drops. Teams are limited to 5 players, and the only effective team for the dungeons is tank/healer/dps/dps/dps. ALL OF THEM.
- There is no fly, super-jump or teleport. There is only sprinting, and the highest level you can buy ("sprint 6") is not as fast as super-speed was in CoH (subjectively it seems about half as fast)
- There is simply no way to get end-game gear solo. You must do 5-man teams of the above arrangement.
- The player community is not very friendly.
- There are really only 4 tiers (2 or 3 zones each), but the skill gap between them is huge. You'll get very overpowered, beat the gatekeeper boss (solo -- there's no option to team on these), unlock the new zone, go there and get your ass very quickly handed to you by the first mob you encounter. It's choppy for the 2nd and 3rd tier, then they really punish your success...
- the 4th level-unlock tier (Kaidan) introduces you to the concept of shields. You start with none, and all the bad guys have them. You must use bracelets to break down the enemy shields. You do ZERO actual damage until their shields are gone. You do missions to earn bracelets, each of which converts only a very small amount to reduce enemy shields (I think you start at 2% or something). So it takes 1 or 2 minutes before you can even START damaging a minion-level mob. Meanwhile they are damaging you, no problem at all. To make it worse, there are 3 colors of shields, and you must don the same color bracelet, or you're back to doing zero damage. AND - the only way to upgrade a bracelet to be more effective (levels 1.0 through 1.9) is to... defeat hundreds of enemies. In other words: grind! Some mobs have 2 or 3 shields, and you have to take them out in order. At least it's easy to see which color shield is up on everything.
- In the higher levels and dungeons, 80% of your focus must be on dodging projections (AoE indicators) on the floor. Only the tanker and healer will survive ONE HIT. The healer must focus 100% on the tank, so the 3 DPS team members will be one-shotted by everything on the map, even having one toe hanging over the edge of an AoE. To me this was just endlessly frustrating, and by no means challenging or fun. I want to fight, not dodge puddles.
Those last two points are why I haven't even logged on in about a month. It's just too much of a grind against over-powered enemies, and what I've seen of the end-game is just a gear grind in which one is puddle-dodging. And I don't see the point of doing the dungeons only to become better equipped to do the same dungeons.
It sounds really negative, I know, but I REALLY DID enjoy the first 3 tiers of the game, enough to pay for the lifetime sub (which really only gets you a regular deposit of game bucks to be spent on DLC and fluff)
Bottom line: The first 2 or 3 tiers are definitely fun, challenging and at the right price, but right about at tier 4 it turns into a death march of grinding.
