Rating: 
Summary: It seemed like it would be fun...
Review: ...so, I bought this game yesterday. I was pretty souped for it, as a friend of mine had purchased it and he seemed excited about it. Installation and registration went smoothly. I entered the character creation screen, and I noticed a problem. The character model looked very, very strange. I figured it might be a RAM problem, so I took the hard drive out of my laptop, and moved it into another with more RAM. Still, same problem. So, I spent four hours straight attempting to fix this problem, including updating my graphics drivers. Same problem. Turns out Cryptic Studios neglected to provide rudimentary support for laptops using Radeon Integrated Graphics chipsets for this game. The textures on the character models and in the world are either not visible, or translucent/ghostly. Go to the Technical Support board at cityofheroes.com, and find the topic labeled ATI Radeon 7500 check-in, and you'll see a lot more people suffering from the same problem I just recounted. Even worse, NCSoft/Cryptic has no viable method of customer support for this problem. Further, they don't plan on providing one in the near future. So, in short, make doubly/triply/quadruply (izzat a word?) that your computer can run this game like butter before you even consider buying it. Wait. Even better. Don't buy it unless you have a GeForce card.
Rating:
Summary: OH MY GOOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I was Exited about getting this game I had been saving up for it and everything ... when I got it I didnt even think about reading it I mean gosh its a game ....... well it tuns out its 40 Dollars just to get it then it says that you only get a 30 DAY TRIAL PERIOD then after that YOU NEED TO PAY JUST TO PLAY IT THAT IS A BUNCH OF GOOBER I ALLREADY PAID 40 BUCKS AND THEN THEY WANT MORE MONEY JUST SO I CAN PLAY IT .....NO THANK YOU THIS WAS THE WORST PUCHASE IVE MADE IN MY LIFE ........UNLESS YOU HAVE A GOOD JOB AND OR ARE RICH DO NOT GET THIS GAME ........ "the only reason (goober)was mentiond in this reveiw was to keep it clean... thank you " P.S. I WOULDVE GIVEN THIS GAME A ZERO BUT THEY WOULDNT LET ME !!! :(
Rating: 
Summary: Let me tell you this
Review: Ive read many of these bad reviews and I couldn't agree less. This game is fun and the idea is great. I do not play other online MMRPG's because they take too much time and involve to much stuff. This is sleek easy and the combat is excellent. Teaming is great fun and required to progress far in the game. I have already made a lot of friends and formed a Super Group. All Archtypes are needed and serve their purpose. Ive found healers to be the most important yet the rarest of them which is a shame. You can say it gets repetetive and levels are too similar but the promised June update starts to fix that where we are promised more baddies, more mission levels, private outdoor missions, missions where you can get cpatured and need rescued etc. Plus with City of Villains on the horizan PvP combat is on the way. The game is a great start much better than what I have read about Star Wars Galaxies, and I look for it to continue to evolve and grow into a great piece of entertainment for a long time. If you want to be a superhero this is the game for you.
Rating:
Summary: Most excellent.
Review: I'll be the first one to admit that when I first heard COH came out I scoffed. "Superheroes," I stated in no uncertain terms, "will make for one terrible game", and I had dozens of legitimate reasons for hating the game without ever having played it. Until I played it. Oh man, is this game fun! The extent of my MMORPG experience to date has been around a year of Star Wars Galaxies and random dabbling with Everquest. Everquest never caught my attention because of the idiotic camping of the "phat l3wts" and blatant elitism of the majority of the player base, who appear to be overweight nerds who sit in their basement excreting in socks and empty Mountain Dew bottles to allow them to snipe the Sword of Invincibility +300 out from under another nerd who is doing exactly the same thing a thousand miles away. Star Wars Galaxies involved much the same thing, except the macro system allowed you to avoid having to "go" (so to speak) in containment vessels because you could leave a macro running and get all the "phat l3wt" or levels you wanted without even having to sit at the computer. In addition, the technical support and patching on Star Wars Galaxies is atrocious, in some cases leaving horrible problems in the game and fixing minor issues, in other cases fixing a major issue and introducing dozens more bugs. Not so with City of Heroes, which in addition to having excellent technical support staff, actually accomplishes things with its patches and exhibits the ability to fix issues without breaking ten other things that previously worked perfectly. As for graphical quality, the game's graphics manage to be cartoony without being -too- cartoony, in keeping with their comic book world, and the effects on your superhero's attacks are brilliantly done. In addition to everything else, NCSoft is planning to release an expansion next year called City of Villains that will introduce not only the ability to be a supervillain instead of a namby-pamby goody two shoes, but also apparently the missing element in COH, PvP combat. In short, COH is everything that other MMORPGs like Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies lack: A dev staff that actually knows what it's doing, fun, and a total lack of camping for that ausome Brassiere of Invulnerability or whatever the item du jour happens to be. If you don't want to have to do a number two in a sock or write a long macro to have fun with your game, try out COH. You won't regret it. My only beef with the game is the lack of capes, which will hopefully be addressed in a future megapatch.
Rating:
Summary: Non-gamers read this
Review: I am NOT a gamer. Never have been. The extent of my gaming is limited to playing Solitaire and Pinball on my work laptop in departure lounges. What I am is a comic book fan. Yes, quite an anomaly being into comic books and not into gaming. I bought CoH, only to discover my laptop did not meet the recommended requirements, so the game ran slow and the screen was pretty dark with all characters including my own looking like shadows with no detail. Still I made it through the tutorial and up to Level 3. Suffice it to say I am now substantially poorer due to buying an all new system on Memorial Day so I could continue to feed my addiction. If you're a non-gamer like me, but enjoy comics, this game rocks. Levels 1-4 go by pretty quickly, so you get immediate positive reinforcement which gets you hooked. Once you hit Level 5 and start accumulating Experience Debt if you play poorly, you realize you need to utilize your powers more strategically, be careful about who you attack, and be aware of which zones you venture into. The archtypes map perfectly to existing comic characters, so comic fans can pretty much create who they've always enjoyed reading about (aka X-Men's Wolverine is the archetypical Scrapper). I've even seen some CoH heroes that look like and have similar powers to "real" comic book heroes (Green Lantern, Elektra, Hulk), though personally that's not my thing.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, fresh, stable, and right.
Review: I got this game about two weeks after release. During a week of playing I have experienced no lag or game crashes at peek weekday and weekend times. The game itself is extremely fun, entertaining, and fresh. The "newbie" soloing stage can be finished within a span of 5 to 10 hours of game play - during which time you can learn the controls, mission and combat knowledge, and all them other things. Past the beginning, one mission will take you to a battle zone - mostly probably Perez Park. At that point you will join a group. This is where the game shines. Group combat can be best described as fast paced adrenalin pumping action. Much like the fighting you would expect from a comic book scenario. In terms of EQ, try to remember Orc Hill in Greater Faydark - way back in the day - but with superior graphics and player abilities diversity. In COH, obtaining a group is extremely easy - it is surprising that this fundamental feature is not present in all new games. EQ was the first to stumble on the "easy of obtaining a group" problem, and was the first to address it. Their first attempts to make grouping easier led them to create group friendly in game search engines. This however was only half the solution. With the addition of adventures, the environment itself was readjusted to make grouping a natural process, and to a large degree the problem was solved. COH followed this two-step design perfectly, and imbedded the EQ ideology unto itself. The game now is in a great beginning state. There is enough simplicity for game balance, and enough diversity for diversity sake. If you are a MMORPG fan you should definitely give this game a try.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, but MMORPG veterans be wary
Review: (Please note: this review is intended for those who have played or are familiar with at least one MMORPG [UO, EQ, AC, etc.] and have taken or can take the initiative to look up basic information about the game on their own) City of Heroes (CoH) offers a fun, drastically different MMORPG experience: playing a super hero in a world where superheroes are as common as the criminal organizations they fight. Create a character, pick your power sets, design your costume and you've pretty much gone through 90% of the customization of the game. Because CoH has no true economy or item system to speak of, your focus will not be the accumulation of wealth. Your character's appearance is determined at creation and cannot be modified ever again, which in combination with the lack of items and economy, leaves little for many players of MMORPGs to focus on. After all, what's the point of playing if you can't quest for that ultra-powerful weapon that glows and only two other people on your server have? All you have in City of Heroes is your reputation as a player. The game is a true roleplayer's dream world: all you have to focus on is your character's growth and involvement with your fellow players. Those who've always liked comic books and envision themselves as a superhero of ANY variety will have a field day in CoH: you learn of a drug lab in an abandoned warehouse, enter alone or with a team and fight hordes (literally 10-20 at a time in some cases) of thugs. You see a mugging as you wander the street and utter a battlecry as you punch the offender's face in: the bystanders flee in a very realistic way and the victim you save runs up to thank you when you're done. But the experience would lose its charm quickly if the actual game dynamics weren't up to par. The combat system is pretty innovative: it requires more conscious thought and team tactics than most other games. Unlike other MMORPGs, where every party member follows a formula that can be macroed with relative ease, CoH's combat is fast paced because almost every encounter entails multiple enemies at once. While crowd control certainly exists, the dynamics of ordinarily straightforward roles like Tanks and Nukers is changed drastically when faced with multiple opponents. CoH's designers also clearly had your friends in mind when they made the game. Unlike FFXI, which made it a battle to even get onto the same server as your friends, CoH provides numerous ways to ensure you're still able to play with your friends. The acceptable level spread for a party is much wider than most games, and parties of level differences in excess of 5 are not uncommon. The sidekick system also allows you and a friend to play together regardless of your level difference: sidekick, and poof, almost the same level as your friend (on a temporary basis, and without the additional abilites gained by leveling). The world isn't very big, but you have incentive to explore it all as the mission system takes you to randomly generated locations around the various city areas. This has the added bonus of removing camping problems from the game: when your team takes a mission, you are the only ones able to enter the (randomly generated) mission location. Character customization is about average. Aside from the costume possibilities (NCSoft lists the number of possible permutations in excess of 2.0 x 10^27), once you've picked your power sets, you're going to have the same basic abilities as everyone else. The ability to choose from power pools is nice, but without equipment, there are clearly limits. Enhancing your powers with (aptly named) enhancements allows for a limited amount of customization: do you want your energy beam to travel farther, do more damage, or hit more consistently? On a more technical note, CoH had one of the cleanest, smoothest MMORPG launches to date, with relatively few bugs and almost no server problems (I have yet to encounter either myself). They offer no live customer support, but their CS team e-mails you back about issues promptly and with a minimum of automation. On the whole, CoH is an interesting experience geared toward those interested in roleplaying and character progression as opposed to ph4t l3wt. If that sounds interesting to you, or if you have a desire to put on a mask and combat evil, get the game.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Game
Review: I bought this game when I had given up on getting into the WOW beta... when I got back from picking City up I checked my email and discovered that I was accepted into the WOW beta. So I installed City and started playing it - that night I downloaded the WOW beta (massive download) and played that the next morning. WOW is pretty disappointing, maybe expectations are just too high. Maybe it is just the same thing all over again... another fantasy RPG with nothing new. City on the other hand has become an addiction, I play this game way too much. As simple as it sounds the Sidekick is probably the biggest thing in the game. Allowing lower level characters to play with their friends higher level characters. Leeching always sucked in DAOC, no leeching here. Personal missions also work well, there is way too much spawn camping in other MMORPGs... Graphics are pretty awesome but they default at 100% - you have to move them up - on my old computer (geforce 3 ti500, 1.4GHZ XP) I can play at 160% character and environment... and the graphics are sweet. Boomtown is incredible -
Rating:
Summary: Simple fun
Review: Pros:
1. Great character creation-its unlikely you'll ever see two characters that look alike.
2. Combat is a lot of fun-combat is still the standard MMORPG style click on an enemy and hit attack, but it happens at a very fast pace, and there are a large variety of skills and attacks to use. You have to pay attention to whats going on and react quickly.
3. Graphics-The graphics are great.
4. Servers-Loading and loggin in are very fast. In the last month I've been kicked off the server only once, and have never had a problem logging in. Loading between zones is also very fast.
5. Grouping-Grouping is very easy - simply click on the "Seeking Team" button, and within a few minutes you will likely have an invite. Groups form quickly-its very easy to find a good group of diverse characters.
6. Doesn't have to be a full time job - None of the missions(at least any I've encountered) require a great deal of time. This is an easy game to play for a 1/2 hour a day and still accomplish something. Cons:
1. Not sure how this game will hold up after a several months. There are no items in this game - no crafting, no trade skills, no property. This game is strictly combat, which it does very well. Many people are probably using this game as filler until WOW comes out. Overall:
This game is definetly worth getting, even if you've tried other MMORPGs and hated them.
Rating:
Summary: A quality MMORPG that offers something different
Review: I broke down and bought City of Heroes last night. I decided since World of Warcraft isn't slated till November and Matrix Online lost it's publisher that it wouldn't be a problem getting into an MMORPG now (most people can only play one at a time). I must say, I'm impressed. It's much better than Everquest (which I found to be a chore rather than a game). The game is much more simplistic and focuses on the action of being a superhero rather than baking cakes and camping spawn points so you can slay a rat. In City of Heroes, you start the game as a hero, not as an insect exterminator. You rome around the city helping civilians in need (usually they are being acosted by gang members). You have contacts as well that give you missions. If you complete them, they will introduce you to new contacts who will give you new missions (which of course ramp up in difficulty). There is no money in the game and no items to collect. You are a superhero, not a gold hording adventurer. There is however a thing called "influence." Influence can be used like money to purchase enhancements to your powers via various methods (such as training, genetic enhancement, technology, etc..) all depending on your origin. You have a class as well that determines what kind of powers you have access to. Together, your origin and class describe what type of character you are. With out a doubt, the single most impressive thing about this game is character creation. I'm not kidding when I say it may take you hours to generate your character. Not because it it complicated, but because there is so much customization available to designing the look of your character. Each class also has many different paths it can take, so planning that could take some time as well. Or you can simply use the random costume generator, randomly click through the classes and powers and be playing in an instant. I think most people will spend quite a bit of time getting just the right look of their superhero. Another note about this game is how possible it is to "solo." Most MMORPGs are designed to play with a group and make it extremely difficult to advance (and indeed survive) when playing alone. In this game, several character classes work very well on their own. Still the point of the game is multiplayer. And to that extent, instead of guilds or clans like most games have, this one has superhero groups; form your own superteam. You can also group on the fly with strangers if you wish. This game even has a system that allows characters of widely different levels to group together in the form of "sidekicks." This is great because most games of this type only you to play with other players near your level. Overall, the game is just simple fun. Grab a few buddies, form a supergroup and save the city.
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