MMORPG.com's Michael Bitton takes an in-depth look at Cryptic Studios' newest MMORPG, Champions Online in this week's review.

Champions Online is Cryptic Studios' sophomore effort on the MMOG scene, and is the first AAA superhero MMOG to appear since the company birthed City of Heroes over five years ago. Times were different then, Cryptic Studios was a small company, and World of Warcraft hadn't even made its splash on the genre yet. With that said, have all the years and experience behind the company paid off in the form of a true next-generation superhero MMOG? Or do we have something truly villainous on our hands?

To start, Champions Online offers a robust character creator filled to the brim with options. Like City of Heroes before it, the creator could be considered a game in and of itself. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped what I was doing on one character and gone back to the creator to test out a new idea, or to try and see if the creator would let me create a pre-existing character I was thinking of. Just about every time, the game allowed for it, which is a testament to how excellent the character creator truly is. Of course, this flexibility is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you just never know what crazy creative creation you'll see next. On the other, I can't count how many Iron Man, Superman, or even Battletoad clones I've seen.

Read the Champions Online Review