"Not as bad as I thought..but that isn't saying much"

I hesitated to pick this one up because I thought a comic book oriented MMO was simply a really dumb idea. The game play turned out to be better than I thought, in fact it's a rather fun distraction from every day life. However, combat becomes repetitive and if you don't play a dps class it is down right boring. A lot of universal key commands from other games are completely different in COV or else they are slightly modified enough to be annoying, such as placing a comma after the person's name when sending a tell.

The intense character customization is a definite plus and you can create almost anything your heart desires. However, the lack gear to upgrade means you are going to be looking at the same thing for the rest of your gaming career.

A lot of game systems are complex and not altogether well explained so some TLC with the game manual is definitely in order. I was left with a very vague conceptualization of lairs, raids, supergroups and enhancements. If you find this sentence confusing don't expect too much more info in game either. To top it off the tutorial is anything but..think of it like a mini interlude rather than anything with teaching utility.

The streets look much the same and despite the inclusion of a map you may find yourself lost more often than not. On the other hand if you do persevere long enough to form a supergroup there are lots of interesting options to customize your base. You have the option to "salvage" components in your travels in order to build items for your base. It's a very interesting feature until you realize just how many items you will need to salvage in order to form anything good. To top this all off it basically requires a raid force of dedicated players to horde truly powerful items against attack. In a game that purports to embrace the solo player it is somewhat limiting.

I found the player base to be un-engaging, chat to be quiet, groups to be lacking and pvp to be overrated. Furthermore the plethora of world channels makes you wonder if people are simply too confused to chat. Overall it's worth the one month trial and not much after that.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/07