First note that as a fan of CoX (City of Heroes/Villains) I will be making some direct comparisons between the two games. But don't think that my enjoyment of CoX means I have treated CO with distain or will have a biased view.  I treated it like a new MMOG and hoped it would find success and its players enjoy it. So without farther ado, heres the review.

Good:

Character Creation is deep. In ways it's better than CoX, in other ways its not.

Combat mechanics are solid and can be quite fun.

Graphics are solid, at least character graphics. Also you can turn off Cel-Shading if you dislike it.

Millenium City is large and with a solid bit of variety, with towering buildings in the center of the city, a business district, china-town, etc.

Lots of travel powers, some cooler than others. You get to choose two, the first at 5th level.

You can change the color of your powers.

The custom framework system of choosing your own powers from any set is sweet, but also has limitations (see below.)

The game is zone based but those zones are (mostly) quite massive.

Bad:

It has certainly earned it's 'Scrappers & Blasters Online' nickname (more on that later.)

The game is themepark game ala WoW. Works for some but insures repetitive content and quests that are simply not 'heroic'.

Remarkably few gameplay zones, though the each contain a lot of content.

Did you think CoH lacked depth at release? It had nothing on Champions Online.

The crafting is largely bland and in many cases, nearly useless.

The UI is substandard with little customization. The inventory and 'gear' system in particular is bad.

Teaming is needs a LOT of work.

The PvP seems completely pointless and is utterly unbalanced (though CoX PvP was never great either.)

Beta Testing was limited to 6 hours twice a week (with a handful of weekends in the last month or two). Most beta's that are 24/7 have issues that beta testers simply don't catch or don't crop up until release. With such a small amount of beta hours I suspect the issue will be even worse.

Review:

I got into CO beta in early march and have largely enjoyed the game, though I did get a bit of burnout in July and didn't play for about 3 weeks. I consider it a duty to put a game through its paces if I get selected for beta (and because of this, I get accepted often.) So I'm not one to go 'this game suxxors' people who think early beta = release candidate and never log on again. Over the course of those 5+ months of beta-testing the game changed by leaps and bounds. When I first got in, several aspects of the game needed some serious overhauls, and 99% of them have gotten it. One thing that has improved the most is the combat system. In a MMOG the combat needs to be fun. In a Superhero MMOG, it better be damn fun, and for the most part it is.

Powers works like thus; You start the game with two powers. You either choose a power set or create a customized one. IE if you pick the 'Fire' set you get the first two fire based powers. If you make a custom 'framework' you pick the two powers from any power set. You could pick the first power from Power Armor and your second from Munitions. It is entirely up to you. Even if you go with a predefined power set when you level up and can gain more powers, you aren't forced to go with that same set for your other powers. The only thing is that higher Tier powers require so many lower tier ones. For example say your Fire like the example above, you can get the most powerful Tier 2 powers once you have three powers from the Fire set. But if your a custom framework and want to get T2 powers, you need 5 'non endurance building' powers before they become available. In the end your character is truly 'yours' with a costume that is likely to be fairly unique and a wide variety of powers of your choice.

One issue is that you really only need 3 or 4 powers for the entire game. That first power you pick is your 'endurance builder and it's a toggle auto-attack. Hit 1 with a target selected and you start using the power repeatedly (you used to have to tap 1 repeatedly, which was a real pain.) Once you have enough endurance, you can use your second power, which uses that endurance. A recent change is that you start with high endurance so you don't 'always' have to hit that end-builder first thing but can start a fight with a big hit right off the bat. It's a minor change but helped a lot. The end' using powers work one of two ways. Some powers you can hold down to build up and as you use up endurance with the build up you do more damage. Others use a strait amount of endurance every time. You have those two powers for the first 5-6 levels (the tutorial) before you can gain more. Once you do you really only need those two, a passive defense power and either a shield power or an aoe/high damage power. YOu get far more by the time you hit the cap but people have tested going through the entire game with 3 powers and it is entirely possible, if boring.

So while the powers and combat have some cool possibilities it can be problematic. As well this makes teaming in the game very odd in that there isn't a single power set built for tanking, healing, or defending, or CC. There are CC, defensive, healing powers scattered around the power sets and a few have more than others. But it's not like CoX were you have your melee guys and your blasting guys but you also have your tanks, your buffers, your healers, your control guys. It makes teaming CoX some of the most fun in MMOGs because each player brings something different to the team, and makes team gameplay engaging and tactical. Anyone who has played CoX and teamed even at low levels knows what I mean. In CO there is none of that. Because each character has their own power sets you never know who can do what. (As well 'examining players does not show their selected powers.) Most teams end up being made up of blasters and scrappers. There are no tanking power sets so you need to boost your Presence (one of the ability scores) and when you level up your powers, level them for drawing agro, though the problem is not all powers can do that. You never know who might tank because you never know who's built for it. Do you have a healer? Who knows. One person might have a healing power but it heals over time and is only usable every 30 seconds. What about CC? What about buffing? There is zero way to know any of this accept everyone listing their powers and how they leveled them up. Who has focused on the Strength power, who's got the highest presence. It makes teaming a MAJOR pain in the ass and the vast majority of players do not build with anything but blasting or scrapping in mind. Thus the nickname 'Blasters and Scrappers Online.'

What doesn't help as well is the fact that for the vast majority of combat, it's you and 1-2 monsters (3 or more and you can be in serious trouble, even with mobs your level or just above,) and you stand there and fire your powers while they stand there and use theirs, whether its punching or lobbing toxic waste. Few monsters are able to do things like knock you into the air and few player powers do anything but strait damage. A few powersets have more interesting affects, like an upercut power that knocks enemies in the air or shotgun that throws them back or ice cages, etc. It certainly isn't remotely as 'active' as CoX where your always throwing enemies around, taking over their mind, cutting them down, freezing them in place, making them attack each other, etc. Not to mention in CoX you rarely are fighting so few enemies, even at level 1. A large part of what makes the gameplay so 'eh' is that, even though the powers are cool, the enemies are largely simply not memorable. The zombies, the thugs, the mafia guys, they seem too convoluted and have nothing of what made CoH enemies so memorable. Enemy groups that had their own taunts, their own abilities besides 'shoot and punch'. They had their own style, their own strategy and may have even worked together. I could tell you of hundreds cool events and missions I've done with the Tsoo, the Freaks, Crey, even Hellions and Skulls. But I cannot think of a single 'non-boss' group in 5 months of CO play that really was memorable. They all just flow together. They are more like generic WoW enemies that unless they were bosses seemed to all have the same 'feel' to fight against.

The combat gameplay isn't all bad. One aspect of combat that is better than CoX however, is the ability to pick up just about anything and throw it. Based on your strength you can pick up rocks, lamp posts, cars, and at high strength even busses and throw them at enemies. This is something a lot of folks wanted in CoX, which is part of my hypothisis on the game (see below).

So the combat can be enjoyable but also can get boring do to repetitiveness, teaming issues and more. Lets move on to the games content.

The game is a themepark game. So it bears some resemblance to the king of all themepark MMOGs, World of Warcraft. It is heavily quest based and while there is some dynamic content (largely in Millenium City) the vast majority of it is quest driven. You get quests from NPCs with a symbol over their head (which does include an exclamation mark.) The quests vary, some are relatively heroic but the vast majority are not. In the tutorial quests are typical themepark quests. Go get the laptop, find this guys travel tickets, with some like 'free citizens from rubble' or 'free citizens from aliens' are a bit more heroic. The game also has public quests ala WAR, though usually one per zone or so and most are pretty much the same as regular quests, simply area wide. After the tutorial (which is of course.. all about teaching you game mechanics,) quests vary on the zone you go to. But the quests are the same every time you take a player through said zone and with only a handful of zones in the entire game, once you've made two characters and maxed them you've seen every single ounce of content in the game. The quests are 99% typical 'kill x, gather x, fedex x' quests, though do to outcry on the forums, some more heroic style quests have been added, particularly at later levels. Still the game feels simply so generic because of this.

Now whether you'd prefer the WoW style quest based CO over CoX's repetitive missions is up to you. Personally I prefer missions that vary wildly between characters and since release CoX has added a great deal more variety, though some zones certainly have a themepark feel. But in the end I much prefer the sandbox style of game that CoX is.

The UI is fairly typical. You've got your character icon with his health and endurance under it, an enemy one across from it. You've got your map in the upper right corner (and like most new MMOGs it shows quest and NPC locations, and usually a large circle showing the location for each particular quests goals.) The chat system is.. ok. Nothing spectacular but it works. One real issue is inventory and gear space. The gear in the game is typical MMOG stuff. A 2d icon that if you move over it shows a generic description and what ever bonuses (almost all gear has strict stat bonuses, though some has clickable procs or other effects.) The big problem is you can never tell what gear goes were. Unlike most MMOGs were chest armor is clearly chest armor, a weapon is clearly a weapon, even if (like WoW) 50 different swords may use the exact same 2d icon. In CO the icon gives you zero idea of where it goes. Each player has 3 primary slots and 6 passive slots and in 5 months of beta I couldn't tell you what goes in what slot by reading an items description, accept sometimes for the primary slots. You find out where it goes by attempting to equip it, and the correct slot highlights. It's poorly designed and with icons that give zero hint at what the gear is. (A piece of chest armor might have a red icon with an alien head on it for example.) The inventory itself is small though it has like 10 'tabs' that don't do anything until you equip a bag (that is crafted) but most give 4-10 extra slots and I see zero reason to have all those tabs. On top of that they often over-lap the gear area.

Those with hopes of a lot of UI customization, I wouldn't expect any. Hell you cant even move the hotbars around and for the longest time you only had 7 powers lots (that includes 'shift' and 'T' keys, for block and travel power.) Though for powers you do have mulitple 'build' slots like Passive and Offensive that let give different bonuses and allow you to slow certain powers together, which is a pretty cool feature, but then again the UI for it is so bad that I would say 80% of players don't even take advantage of it.

I'll mention crafting but only in passing. It is largely of little use and pretty poorly designed in terms of interface, depth, etc. YOu have to get one of the three crafting disciplines because a crafted item is required for a final quest in one of two 'post tutorial' 'Hazard' zones. The crafting is comparable to Tabula Rasa crafting. You can craft the generic gear but it is rarely better than what drops off random mobs, though I haven't taken crafting very high so I cant say for sure, but form the forums it doesn't sound like it gets much better than the mid-range I've taken it to.

After all these months of testing and working hard to get it to the solid point it is now I have come to realize one thing. While the new guys at Cryptic certainly have the talent, the leaders behind this game didn't have a really solid vision of the game, or at least didn't follow that vision all to well. Frankly it's almost as if Roper and more so Jack Emmert (former lead of CoX), when they sat down to make this game, they thought of everything that CoX didn't have the players clamored for.

They thought;

'hey CoX players wanted to change the color of their powers.'

'They wanted more travel powers, like swinging and they want them earlier'

'They wanted the ability to pick up random items and use them as w

'They wanted more outdoor zones.'

'They want to get capes and wings earlier and cool 'glow fx' sooner.'

'They wanted to be able to pick any power no matter the set.'

... and so they did that, they took every aspect of CoX that players wanted changed or liked better and implemented them in CO. But in focusing so much on 'what CoX didn't or hasn't done' they completely forgot what makes CoX such a solid game in the first place, with a dedicated bunch of players. In some ways this game is what CoX could have been, but in most ways it takes what makes CoX good and throws it out the window.

IMHO if CoX was released today instead of 5+ years ago, with modern technologies, graphics and gameplay mechanics but the same in every other way, it would blow CO out of the water. As it stands it's older and the graphics aren't as good, the zones are fairly small and largely set in the city, but it's features, it's content, it's depth and it's replayability are bar none better than what CO offers at the moment.

My Rating, with out comparing it to other MMOGs is;

6.5/10 with potential.

In the end I'd like to say that I do hope Cryptic has some success with the game. For the most part the people that work there are talented and dedicated. Though I won't be buying the game I'm sure some will have fun with it, and it is VERY fun at first, until the 'wow this is new and cool' feeling goes away and the repetitive combat, poor teaming and shallow gameplay kick in.

Mod edit - quoting deleted post. GaiusMarius

To the OP: good write-up. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together. I'm semi-interested in CO, but I think I'm going to wait a while until things get smoothed out.

Edited the OP for errors and more detail.

Thanks, I feel the game will do pretty good. I think the release should be quite solid and the number of bugs (especially game breakers) is pretty low. I hope people will like it really. :) I just wanted to write a review to give people some ideas of the good and the bad, the flaws and what CO does right. In hopes that they will know what to expect when they get there. The vast majority are gonna find the game super fun, at least for a while. :) I tried to stay as unbiased as I could, though I couldn't help but compare it to CoX in several areas. Considering for now the two games are the only direct competition, I felt it was needed.

Good review overall, Fion. There are a few things I'd like to comment on.

But it's not like CoX were you have your melee guys and your blasting guys but you also have your tanks, your buffers, your healers, your control guys.

There are Defensive, Offensive, and Support roles. It would be nice to be able to visibly see what role a player is in since its a lot like their class. There is nothing wrong with saying that you need a defensive hero in your group rather than saying you need a Tanker. They kinda mean the same thing, right?

The real problem is that the content hasn't been tweaked for a well rounded group. Some day it may be tweaked so that players can really take advantage of the combined roles, but right now its not. You can play in the roles and there are tangible benefits, but most people won't be able to or care about building a diverse group.

Few monsters are able to do things like knock you into the air and few player powers do anything but strait damage.

Grondlings? Man those things throw me all over the place. I get held all the time my MOB's. I'd say that the MOB types in CO are even MORE memorable than they are in CoX. And ALL player powers do more than straight damage. In fact, I can't think of a single power that does only damage and nothing else.

The big problem is you can never tell what gear goes were.

Yes, its confusing at first, but after you see where it says things like "Primary Offense" or "Secondary Support" then its a no brainer. It really doesn't take long before you don't even notice the difference between CO's system and a traditional Head, Body, Legs, Ring slot system.

Hell you cant even move the hotbars around and for the longest time you only had 7 powers lots (that includes 'shift' and 'T' keys, for block and travel power.)

You can press F11 and move anything in the UI to wherever you want.

Think Tabula Rasa crafting.

Now you're heading into ridiculous territory. CO crafting is nothing, not even close to how poor TR crafting was at launch. CO's crafting system isn't bad at all once you get it worked out. The various node buffs are genius. All players can craft consumables and bags. Each specialization focuses on certain stats over others. There are costume pieces, power replacers, devices, consumables, gear. Its very diverse.

... and so they did that, they took every aspect of CoX that players wanted changed or liked better and implemented them in CO.

You say that as if there is something wrong with it. It sounds like a wonderful vision to have and has for the most part been realized in CO. I get the feeling that you have gotten so acclimated to CoX and so used to overlooking its faults that you are no longer able to see anything else without seeing it through CoX colored goggles.

There are a LOT of things that need polish and work in CO. I think you did a good job of pointing those out in general.

Originally posted by Fion  

Bad:

The game is themepark game ala WoW. Works for some but insures repetitive content and quests that are simply not 'heroic'.

I don't understand this being in the 'bad' category.  One of the main reasons that I didn't play CoX very long is that I was tired of going into the same warehouses/office buildings over and over. 

Thats a viable rebuttle on a few points Aganazar, as with crafting as I said I didn't get all that far into it because it was simply bad (mind the last time I got far was more than a month ago, and it was terribly buggy and unfinished.) All powers do something besides strait damage but that something is almost always a very minor secondary effect, compared to CoX were in most archetypes the powers do a huge variety of things.

I forgot F11 could be used to move the UI around lol. But even then it's pretty minor compared to how customizable most MMOG UI's are today.

As to getting so acclimated to CoX I forget it's faults, thats not true what so ever. I'm a fan of the game to be sure, but it absolutely has some faults, repetition not the last of which. It's why I always suggest that people treat the game as a cusual experience. But I have noticed that so much of what CO does is directly something that CoX players have asked for over the years, yet the game has so little of what made CoX great. The combat isn't remotely as involving (though perhaps more fun, at first.) The teaming leaves everything to be desired, and your right that a good part of the teaming issues is that content simply hasn't been 'tweaked' for it but it needs a LOT more than simply 'tweaking.'

And Xcalibur I put it in the 'bad catagory' not so much because it's a themepark MMOG, but because its so quest based the content is very repetitive, replay value drops and the quests are largely not heroic in the least. And as to CoX and it's office/warehouse, the mission layouts and styles get much more diverse with levels, though I agree it needs more diverse mission tilesets at various levels. I simply would rather have story-focused missions (even with the few tilesets at each level range) if the combat is fun, the teaming is great and the enemies are memorable.

Clearly not everyone is going to completely agree with my review, just like I don't agree with others. But its an honest and fairly unbiased review based on extensive testing experience. I hope it helps but by no means should anyone use it alone as a deciding factor on whether to give the game a shot or not.

Wasn't that impressed with this review to be honest... rather dull.... made worse by the fact he kept using CoX as a leverage to his own preferences "the mobs aren't memerable in CO compared to CoX", really they were memorable.

Hogger is memorable, Strom is memorable... no mob in City of Heroes ever stood out for me... it was a "meh".

Crafting does suck, but then so was WoW's and LotRO's crafting to begin with. .. WARs crafting and Tabula Rasa's crafting was miles worse than this though... it's rough around the edges but some of the things created aren't "useless".

CoX's crafting was non existent.. hell... it's still pretty crappy when they did release something along those lines.... very poor MMO in my opinion. Cyptic certainly has done better this time around. just.

Although in CO, not much has stood out for me either... i did like that puny supervillian that you fight with Defender during the tutorial, he drops occassional good things (a nice piece of armour, and a crappy helmet so far) but at least they have little PQ's (less annoying and constant than WAR) running.... the first you see when helping Ironclad. (better you do...

Me i find it anyone who says ("i'm not one of these people", "i often play beta's") complete BS when starting a review.  I don't care how many beta's people play... for me that shows their gamers not fanboys, but MMORPG gamers do tend to bounce around a lot and get some stigma from their "first MMO which was the greatest thing ever". And this OP's stigma is CoX. (as saw when he said if it was released now with modern technology).

It's a niche market... if CoX was released now... even upgraded, it'd still be pretty crap and have a very small subscription base. It's time to accept that.... CoX's time hasn't past but it's dying... and it will die. Maybe NCsoft will create CoX2... hopefully not.

move on. Try DC Online when it comes out... me... i don't personally care. already bored.

 Your review had some very good points,  some of which I would argue Aganazer had already pointed out.  If anything were to be said about the UI its that CO doesn't really come out and tell you what options you have if you don't like something... for instance, the outlines or the UI placement, or even how the Auto Attack end builder slot is handled... all these items can be changed in the menus if you just knew how...  CO doesn't do the best job at hand holding where thats concerned.

I also feel there are a lot of enemies that stand out to me.  Most of which would be the grondlings that aganazer mentioned, the hunter patriots are another... and one of my favorites.. the manimals of monster island.. and lemurians of course.  Not to mention my own nemesis' minions who just happen to be demons.  Then again, just as in CoX, they didn't become memorable after my first run through of the game,  it was repetition that made it memorable... and knowing which enemies to stay away from. 

Good informative review.  I think my big question that has been burning with Champions Online is what really sets it aside from City of Heroes?  A updared character creation process?  Newer graphics?  Mission terminal system replaced with quests that get eventually get repeatitve?

I have played City of Heroes on and off for a while now.  Lately I have been getting the Super Hero itch again, but I really can't decide whether to just reactivate City of Heroes or give Champions a try.  I have gotten to briefly playtest the game, and it is neat, but again what does it have that CoX doesn't?  Plus there are things in CoX like Superhero bases that CO does not have (which CoX didn't have aty launch as well and was a major complaint of the playerbase that Emerit and company seem to be missing again).  Plus CoX has the Mission Architect syste, something that si appealing.

So what does Champions have that makes it more than a updated City of Heroes?

Oh and one other question, does CO have costume slots like CoX?

I played CO since the end of Alpha and all the reviews I have seen so far have been pretty honest and reasonble imo. This one perhaps encapsulates my own views most closely...the interesting thing is that most reviewers broadly agree on the good and the bad, the overall opinion really shifts based on the importance the reviewer places on those individual items.

Enemies in CO are imo a very bland bunch the game presents everything a'la fantasy beasts so that absence of personality is less damaging on a real beast creature grondling/manimal etc..... though I would have to be critical in that the character designs are quite dismal and often have to contend with a misplaced piece of in game humour.

This game could easily be reskinned as a sword and sorcery fest and would probably fit the theme better than a comicbook world, the comic book theme is really the aspect that is missiong so maybe some of those that turned off for that reason will actually enjoy it...(though making it look like one thing but behave like another seems self defeating).

Edit CO really doesn't have anything new over any other mmo out there, its just in the detail of how it does what it does...thats perhaps the biggest dissapointment.

Discr CoX is hardly my first MMOG, and not remotely my favorite.

My first was EQ, and it wasn't my favorite either.

I can understand you disagreeing with my review. But bashing me over said disagreement is uncalled for.

Originally posted by barezz

Good informative review.  I think my big question that has been burning with Champions Online is what really sets it aside from City of Heroes?  A updared character creation process?  Newer graphics?  Mission terminal system replaced with quests that get eventually get repeatitve?

I have played City of Heroes on and off for a while now.  Lately I have been getting the Super Hero itch again, but I really can't decide whether to just reactivate City of Heroes or give Champions a try.  I have gotten to briefly playtest the game, and it is neat, but again what does it have that CoX doesn't?  Plus there are things in CoX like Superhero bases that CO does not have (which CoX didn't have aty launch as well and was a major complaint of the playerbase that Emerit and company seem to be missing again).  Plus CoX has the Mission Architect syste, something that si appealing.

So what does Champions have that makes it more than a updated City of Heroes?

 

Oh and one other question, does CO have costume slots like CoX?

CO can be considered an updates CoH in the same sense as WAR is an updated WoW.  It has similarities and it has differences.  The powers and combat are different enough to win an honorable mention, the costume creator is similar as are some of the overall gameplay mechanics.  Don't look at CO to break the MMO mold and you'll probably find a game worth a month or so of play.

CO also has costume slots as well.  I don't think you can change them on the fly though, I think it has to be done at a tailor.  You can also pick up new weapons and armor and such.. and those items can be used in the costume creator as well.

Skipped the PvP aspect, but it's such a little thing it's no big deal.

You do notice early on how imbalanced some powers are though. I can envision people seeking X build for harder encounters.

I played it for about 3 days and had my fun and it didn't have anything that would keep me there.

I only toyed with crafting, but I think there is more to it than the OP let on.

Great review.  Well thought out and some major effort went in to getting your point across.   I can see where you are coming from on some angles tho, for the most part I would tend to disagree. 

Did you not have some NPC run up to you out of nowhere to give you quests?  I had some real interesing ones come up.

Crafting - You can make bags for your inventory.  Dunno if that was in when you last gave it a test.  Probably not.  Crafting was one of the things I like best.  Only been testing it for the last month or so, probably long after you gave up on it.

I have not played too much with the builds on these characters.  So, I do not know how the roles work and tweaking the various CC and utility options in the game.  I know the Darkness powers seem to be the most AoE CC that I could find so far.   Something I do not understand ( and do not really mind it much ) is that the roles tend to not be very different from each other until you get into the late teens to twenties.  Which is about the time most games start really emphasising group play ( basically meaning solo-ability becomes scarse ). 

I keep saying this and I do not know how to put it any differently.  One night I had just this AHA moment where everything seemed to click and I just 'got it' ????  Does that make sense?  It is like, yeah.. You can play the whole game with 3 powers.  But... WHY?  Do you want to?  Go ahead and do it.  If you do not, here are other subtle options.

Yea I gave up on crafting a while ago and probably should have mentioned such. Comparing it to TR was a bit harsh :p

As to the dynamic quests with NPCs running up to you, those are a pretty recent inclusion in the game can be quite fun. I mentioned them in passing (as the dynamic content seen mostly in the city.)

I'm glad some folks got some use out of the review or consider it well done, even if they disagree with parts of it (or all of it for that matter.) I try. :)