Lisa Krebs takes a look at the darker side of City of Heroes with this review of City of Villains.

When I re-entered the world of Villains, I did bring along a teammate, a villain who would partner with me, but after the third mission, said teammate abandoned me for another shinier MMO. Wandering around, I ran into few people, and while it may be the server, my belief is that the population of Villains exists at the higher levels and has little use for creating newer characters. It's not a game that attracts new entrants, and so while it's user-friendly, once a new player gets in, they may not stay.

This is where I think Villains does itself a disservice. While a player's goal tends to be to reach higher levels, and the goal of MMOs is not to have groups of players linger below level 20, it's too easy to get bored by the 'sameness' of the content in the lower levels. A little bit more variety here or there in the stories, or the missions, and I'm convinced my teammate would have stayed with me, and there would be more alts running around... because there's just something fun about leveling new characters, just not in City.

Read the CoV Review