Is this game free to play or just a free trial??  And how is the pvp?  And the pop?

Yes, it is free to play. They haven't charged in years. The game was a huge failure plagued with bugs. the really sad thing about it was it was a really cool concept. Marketed as the world's first FFP MMORPG, the gameplay was slick and fast. I played the beta back in 2002 and continued playing the game for about 3 years despite it short comings. I haven't played it in years and must admit that when I left, the population was god awful bad. The main problem was money. the game really needed a huge finacial backing , which would have corrected the major problems. All and all, it was my firt venture into the  online rpg genere. It is for this reason, that it remains so dear to me. Despite what seems like a trashing, on my part.

black prophecy is made by them... they are also waiting on how well it does to consider making another neocron... apparently..

The game has really low pop, the biggest group still playing is the german community really.

I think the game had potential but not really worth starting now anymore. There was talks about starting to develop Neocron 3, but I don't follow this game closely anymore, so this might aswell be an easter-egg.

The gamne should be free as far as I know, but it could be that they've gone back to the $5/month. Not sure about that really, but $5/month isn't that noteworthy either.

Is the game still live?  I can not find where I can make an account

Yes it's still free.

I read in their forums somewhere that nc3 may get a 2013/14 release

And i think you need to be able to use click2pay to make an account by yourself

Don't listen to anything Reaktor says, they're so full of shit it's not even funny. Most US players can't make accounts because their payment system is done through a poker scam site, that doesn't allow US accounts.