Keep in mind that I have not done much in terms of PvP or Raiding.
DC Universe Online is obviously a hero/villain game. You pick your mentor (for heroes you can pick Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman) then you select your powers and weapons and then you work on your costume. You can do this in any order. Once you are done with all of that you then name your character and go into the game.
The costume part is nowhere near City of Heroes. You have a lot of choices but I dare say you have about 10% of what City of Heroes allowed. The trade off is that once you are in game, you can change your colors immediately and you can change your look as you pick up new costume pieces. In City of Heroes you have to level up to 20 and then do a quest for the tailor just to open a new costume slot. Still there are more costume choices in City of Heroes. Keep in mind that DC Universe just released and that City of Heroes had less choices when it first started 6 years ago.
When choosing a power you are basically choosing which role you will be playing in groups and raids. The roles are tank, healer, and controller. All characters have the damage role. So for example, if you pick fire as your power then you will be a tank in addition to damage. You can only have 1 role active so you are either playing as DPS or Tank. This helps with leveling up as you can do dps solo and then play as a tank in a group.
I am not going to explain the entire mechanics of the game.
This game is an action game. If you played Batman: Arkham Asylum and liked it, then you will like this game. The main focus in this game is action. Those who like the extra fluff that comes with many MMOs will be disappointed as there is no crafting that I can see and no rpg elements such as fishing or cooking. I am fine with that because I find it kinda weird to log into a video game just to fish or cook. I prefer the action. I guess that is why I have been playing Age of Conan for almost three years.
There are 2 cities which are Metropolis and Gotham. They are huge cities. If you thought the cities in APB were big ... you are in for a surprise. I dare say you could get at least 10 Financial Districts from APB in Metropolis alone. AT LEAST 10. There is plenty to do to level up. I have hit max level and haven't done all the "quests" in this game.
Group play is fun as long as you have people who are patient enough to learn the fights. I was in TS the other night and had to leave channel because those who were in a group were getting mad and cussing up a storm over a boss killing them constantly. Those 4 ppl could never be raiders as it takes a lot to learn many fights. For example, in Age of Conan, it took us almost a month of regularly scheduled raiding to learn and defeat a certain boss. That was the best part of it, learning and finally winning. As for raiding in DC Universe, I have no experience in it yet.
So I will end saying that the raiding is what I am looking forward to. If it is as challenging and fun as Age of Conan raiding then I know I will be hanging around for a good while. However, if it turns out to be too easy or not really fun, then I dare say that my time in DC Universe will be short. If not for the raiding, I cannot see how this game is worth a subscription. You can max level within the first week which means the end game content must be substantial to warrant a subscription fee.
SOE has promised to release new content each month, I have a hard time believing that. Time will tell.
For people who enjoy WoW because of the stuff you can do outside of questing or raiding, this game is not for you.
For those who love the action and cares for little else, this game has it. But will it satisfy?
I am glad I got the game, but I have a strong feeling that I will be either playing Rift or going back to Age of Conan in a few months.
