DC Universe Online

Firstly, let me say, having played World of Warcraft since released and loved every second, I was dubious about buying another online MMO. Especially so soon after purchasing Cataclysm. However, I am VERY glad I did. Cross Warcraft with Comics, a console game method of story telling and a hack and slash beat em' up, and you get DC universe.

DC Universe is the first in a line of many Action MMOs to come (GW2, TERA, RIFT) and I was not in the least bit disappointed.

Graphics
Visually, this game is astounding, nothing comes close in the current MMO world. The characters are well textured and the massive open world is phenomenal. It is run on a hyped up version of the Unreal 3 engine, which means great graphics and not insane minimum specs.

Customization
One word, woah. The things you can do with your character are endless. During character creation you can change Gender, body hight, type, skin (there are some fun ones here, like reptile and other animals). All your clothes, all your powers, all your weapons. AND to add to the already ludicrous choices, you collect more in game! Things called "styles" where if you don't like the look of your current gear, simple change the look to something else, as long as you have previously collected that "style", its a fantastic system that makes it so your character is just how YOU want it to be. On top of looks, each character depending upon "power" has 3 talent trees, A, B and ICONIC POWERS,, so really 2 talent trees and a choice of kick-ass other super heroes powers. You can even choose to run lightening fast, leap tall buildings or fly!

Gameplay
This game plays NOTHING like you've played before, it is essentially a point and click hack and slash, except you can also target for things like powers, crowd control abilities, or even throwing a cow or tractor. Combined with the brilliant method of quest development, upon starting you have your quests and although you can zip around accepting side-quests your current primary quest never needs updating, it is all automated and short CGI clips and narratives guide you through everything, its fantastic

Story
The story is excellently presented, unlike many other MMOs where background reading or the playing of previous games is needed. The intro tells you exactly what you need to know to get started including the premise behind the game. After that your "mentor", and you cna choose who they are, guides you through the current world, if you are a hero, you have sporadic encounters with villains, resulting in you defeating them, after which you get that villains story presented to you in a CGI clip, its fantastic and very rewarding. On top of that there are many icons that can be found all over the DC universe world, that give you snipets of information and when you collect all of that "chapter" you get a nice long clip with lots of story.

Achievements
Oh yes, it's time to talk about the covetted shinies of this game, the achievment system is terrific, not only do you get shiney, flashy YOU HAZ ACHIEVMENT, messages, but there are also "feats". Getting to level 5 is an achievement, getting through a boss fight or instance without being knocked-out or using a potion is a feat. Some of them can be completely unexpected but are non the less, fun to work for. As if that didn't add enough competetiveness to the game, there are also other mini-games that can be taken part in to attain the best score, such as flight races and foot races.

Summary
In short, speaking as a hard-core WoW player and a non-DC or comic fan, this game is simply brilliant, nothing comes close to the freedom and fun you can have with this game. For 30 quid, it is a steal, considering how much you will play it

Having played World of Warcraft (4 years), Lord of the Rings Online (1 year). City of Heroes (6 months) and Star Trek Online (1 year) I was sceptical about trying out a new MMO. I was given this for my birthday last month (January) and I have to say, it was the most fun that I have had on a MMO. It removes the classic push button, do damage model that is used in so many online games, and replaces it with a control system whereby you do attack combos by clicking in certain patterns. Such as Hold Left Mouse x 3, Press Left Mouse x 1. On top of this, it allows to cast spells depending on your damage type, fire/ice/nature/gadgets etc. You can use these to do more damage while doing combo attacks at the same time.
At last, spamming a mouse button actually makes some difference to what your character does!
Also, the amount of customisation options that are offered is immense. I spent 30 minutes going through all the options to create my villain, I ended up with a Business Suit and it looked sinister!
Overall, it is well worth the buy, offers hours of enjoyment and customisation.

If you love MMo's you will love this game, the development of this game has obvisouly taken MMORPG into a new era as far as I am concerned. I have played various MMo's over the last 8 years and this one by far has is my favourite, I know there will be alot of World of Warcraft fans out there, wondering if they should try this game, well I tell you know do it, I did and I can honestly say I will not be going back to WoW!!!!!

The combat, and in game character customisation is just mind boggling awesome and detailed!

There just 1 small detail that is not so hot and thats the chat interface, if you on the PS3 console then great as the game is geared around voice chat, however, those of us (me including) who opted for a PC verson of the game get the same chat interface which is not suited so well to PC unless you opt for Voice. That being said it nothing major and once you get used to the type chat its not so bad.

over all I rate this game a 4.5star ! get it now !

I've played a number of MMORPGs including SWG (early days), WOW, several F2P ones, and both previous superhero games (CoH and Champions Online). Now that I've played DCUO I can't go back.

Don't get me wrong, the other games have some great features. CoH and CO both have more extensive character customization, more varied play systems and/or greater variety of environments: CoH allows heroes to become villains and vice versa, CO has some great environments (jungle, underwater, desert...), but despite it's flaws (and there are some notable ones) DCUO has an amazing combat system, fast-paced action and great PVP.
In previous MMOs I haven't been much for PVP, but it's great fun in the hero/villain settings of Gotham and Metropolis when meeting counterparts on (or over) the street (okay, not so much fun when a lvl 30 takes apart your lvl 7 just because, but that doesn't happen too often). PVP in DCUO is what I had been expecting all the way back to issue 7 of CoH. Finally it's been realized.

In addition, for all the superhero types who've been longing for a proper superspeed--you can finally run across water and up buildings. I love this travel power so much that most of my (16) alts have it.

As for mission criticisms...with only 30 levels to max, there will be repetition. However, you can make heroes or villains and each side has 3 different mentors to choose from, which affects the early and end game, as well as certain missions in between. In addition, while heroes and villains may, at times, do similar story arcs, it's always from opposite sides of the story and the missions are not identical (despite what one poster said).

The endgame does get repetitive very quick. Currently, the endgame content consists largely of completing feats to get more skill points and earning marks to buy better PVP and PVE armor. I'm hoping for more solo lvl 30 content in upcoming expansions.

It should be noted that there are two brilliant things SOE has done in DCUO that improve the playability IMO.

(1) First is the existence of skills and powers. Skills being the general (non mana/timed) attacks like sword, staff, martial arts, etc. and powers being the mana-using abilities (fire, ice, nature, sorcery, gadgets, and mental). This system means you never have to wait for a cooldown period when fighting--your powers are on cooldown, but you skills are always present (and you have skill combos). It also means that any character can be DPS with reasonably good chance at soloing content.

(2) Second is the 'style' feature. DCUO is the first superhero MMO to really focus on collecting armour, however, unlike other MMOs, this doesn't have to affect your appearance since you can choose the appearance of costume pieces based on styles collected and this overrides the appearance (but not stats) of your equipped armour. I, for one, love this feature as you don't get a ton of clones running around (my biggest complaint with WOW).

Other nice QoL issues borrow and improved upon from other superhero MMOs are: destructable objects (these are everywhere in DCUO), and a block/dodge system improved on the CO one.

Overall, great action and PVP fun means I'm willing to stick with DCUO for some time yet.

Im a massive fan of DC Comics. And i love the lore. This game is more than i could have dreamed of. To make my own Super hero. Brillant. But the game doesnt really have any legs in it. You wont find yourself playing this game for 6 years like many people have done with WOW. Quest system does get very repeative. Like many people have said chat system is dire! But overall brillant game well worth a play .