DC Universe Online Standard Edition

by Sony

• DCUO is an action-focused hero and villain game in a fully realized 3D DC Universe created in the artistic vision of legendary comic book artist Jim Lee and DC Comic's WildStorm Productions
• DCUO uses a state-of-the-art physics engine that turns the world into your weapon
• Extreme customization allows players to create their own custom hero or villain
• Players will embark on story-driven adventures penned by Geoff Johns and other famous DC writers while the game world's depth will span the entire DC Universe
• DCUO game-play is being optimized for the PC and the Sony PlayStation 3 Computer Entertainment System

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002I0HHFG
• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: January 11, 2011
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,902 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com

Enter the world of your favorite DC Comics' superheroes and villains in DC Universe Online. Get ready to experience the high-energy action that encapsulates this fabled world, and become engrossed in thrilling battles with or against famed heroes and villains, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and The Joker.

Fight with your favorite DC Heroes

Artwork designed by Jim Lee

State-of-the-art physics engine

Synopsis

We join our hero perched atop a granite gargoyle high above the city of Gotham. His eyes squint as he monitors the streets below, searching for crooked criminal conduct. From afar, he hears the alarm from Gotham National Bank and he dives from the darkness into the illumination of the streets. He soars through the canyon of skyscrapers, hearing the buzz of the citizens below that he has chosen to protect. He sees the bank is only a block away — just then a burst of red passes him to join in the fray. As the two heroes approach the crime scene, they hear the creepy cackling of The Joker. This will not be a run-of-the-mill fight for justice, but then again — what is, in the DC Universe?

Key Features:

• Battle with or against your favorite DC Comics heroes and villains, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and The Joker
• Live out the action and drama in detailed, well-known locations such as Gotham City and Metropolis
• Experience the intensity of the DC Universe in a 3D art style designed by legendary comic book artist Jim Lee
• Take on story-driven adventures created by DC writers
• Extreme customization lets you construct your own hero or villain
• Use the environment to your advantage with the state-of-the-art physics engine that turns the world into your weapon
• 30-day subscription included; Internet connection and additional recurring subscription fees are required to play

Immerse yourself in the intensity that is played out in a carefully detailed 3D world that spans the entire DC Universe with locations such as Gotham City and Metropolis. Create your own custom hero or villain and then embark on story-driven adventures that have been written by famous DC writers. Will you choose to don the cape and mask to fight for good — or are your intentions more sinister?

Product Description

DC Universe Online brings high-energy action to the forefront with a combat system designed to deliver a fast-paced action experience with the extraordinary powers of DC Super Heroes and Villains at your disposal. DCUO offers a dramatic online setting where players battle with or against their favorite DC Super Heroes and Villains including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Joker. For the very first time, players and fans will be able to enter this fabled world as an active force for good or evil. The action and drama will play out in such well-known locations such as Gotham City and Metropolis.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Honest review after maxing out two characters. January 30, 2011

By Jeboel

Platform for Display:PC|Edition:Standard

Fun: 3.0 out of 5 stars   

Honestly can't remember being as excited about a game since Mass Effect 2. I've a huge fan of MMORPGs. I bought this game the day of it's release. After installing it I began what would be the best week of January. The game was amazing to say the least.... for the first two weeks. I'll go into specific detail now.

Character Creation - I've read comments stating that it isn't all that great but honestly it's a lot of fun to edit your character's appearance. I spent 2 hours alone just on trying different combinations of clothing, colors and accessories. As for the powers, you have six trees to choose from: fire, ice, nature, gadgets, mental and magic. It's very limited but the powers unlocked for each one are very useful for just about any situation. Each one focuses on a specific role; fire and ice are defense, mental and gadgets are control and magic and nature are healing. All classes can enter into a damage mode so there's no need for damage dealers. Then you choose what type of weapon you want to fight with, this will be your main damage dealer so choose wisely. You have a few good selections but none that will blow your mind. Melee weapons like the staff, one handed, two handed, brawling, martial arts and the bow(yes the bow is melee). Ranged you get hand blasters, rifle and dual pistols. I might be forgetting a weapon but I doubt it. You can choose one of three mentors, who they are depend on whether you're a villain or a hero. The reality is that it doesn't really have a huge difference in the game, it only makes a difference in the armor you get to unlock and the first few missions. Body type is very limited as there are only three, a child, normal buffed up human and a hulking huge beast of a man. After that, you choose a name and you're good to go....

Story - Story is pretty interesting in the beginning, after that it's nothing special. Your mentor has a small effect on your first few quests but after that you're basically doing the same thing every other hero is doing. I never felt like I was doing anything interesting, no immersion from the quests. All the quest lines follow the exact same path; do three quests then do an instance. Which is fine but then once you get to the instance, more often than not you're rescuing the main heroes. Well, not the main heroes as Wonder woman, Superman and Batman only make about two to three appearances in the entire game and they are always getting beat down. Story feels weak, you jump around way too much and it feels way too random. Help Superman with Braniac, help Batman with the Joker, then go help Wonder woman with Shazaam, there's no structure/order aside from having to rescue these powerful experienced heroes in most missions.

PvP - PvP experience depends on where you play. If you're on a PvP server then you had better be a hardcore PvP lover as you'll constantly get killed by max level player enemies. Mind you, it's a starting area and everyone there is about level 5-7 and you get nothing for killing other players as a prize so it's just for grieving purposes. If you're OK with that then you'll be fine. I felt like there should have been more rewards for killing other players. There are little missions you can take that tell you to kill an enemy player but they aren't anything special. I got more from doing races than doing those missions. In a PvE server, you can flag yourself for PvP and just go about your business until you run into an enemy player that's also flagged which to me was much better because you did it when you were ready and you weren't harassed by players that were board.

PvP & Instances - I seperated this because this is another beast altogether. Instances in general are an enigma to me as after two weeks of playing I haven't done more than two. I queued myself on a Thursday and on a Saturday was still waiting to get in. Once I finally got in I was asked to leave because the players there were waiting for someone else. Either that or I'd be loaded into an instance that was already started and was abandoned by the original team because they got wiped out. No idea why I'd get loaded into an instance that's already started. The more balanced of the instances are the duos in which you go play with someone you're grouped with. Raids on the other hand, are a lot more complicated. If you don't have the proper team you're going to feel a lot of pain and frustration and by the right team I mean 2 of each class. Sure you don't have to but then you're going to experience headaches which suck the fun out of the game.

Chat System & Social aspect - JEEZUS! Just JEEZUS.... Never seen such a horrible chat system in all my 11 years of gaming in MMORPGs. To say that it's broken is an understatement. After all this time league chat (the chat channel for your "guild" which is called a league in DCUO) is still broken, unusable as in not working. It works every day for about four hours after they bring back the servers then it dies again. Chatting is such a pain, you can't stick to one channel always having to type what channel you want to direct your comment to. As in /shout every time you want to chat with everyone in your current "world" or /g every time you want to chat with someone in your group. Now, you don't HAVE to but it randomly reverts back so you run the risk of typing something and sending it to the wrong channel or no one for that matter. Being unable to redo the UI is inexcusable considering that this hasn't been a real issue for any MMO in the past few years. By that I mean no resizing of the chat window, it's always the same size and only fits a few sentences at a time. In order to check what others have written you need to press "O" which brings you to a window that covers your entire screen so your choice is either to chat or play. You have to come to a full stop to check what someone has written if you missed it. People just try to defend this by stating "use voice chat" but the truth is that the voice chat isn't too stable either and whether it's there or not, typing is the bread and butter of an online game as it's the way people communicate. Not being able to communicate with your league is probably the most frustrating as you can never really organize anything unless you have a TS channel which seems to be turning into something that's mandatory now. There's no real reason to group up with people unless you're doing hunts (quests to kill super bosses roaming around the city) and even then you just group up, no one chats because it's such a pain, then you part your separate ways. Nothing in the game drives people to stick together, to socialize other than the odd request for help with bosses. It feels extremely lonely as most of the time once you leave the starting area you rarely run into other players. World chat is usually dead or near barren.

Combat - The main attraction of the game, the combat is so much fun. Sure a thug with a bat can kill you even though you just finished defeating Metalo after he whooped Superman but it isn't a huge issue aside from kind of damaging the immersion. Combat is tons of fun especially once you've mastered your chosen weapon and find what skills better suit your play style. You can choose a different set of skills which are called Iconic skills (skills that the main super heroes use) which are pretty cool to use but you should focus mostly on your chosen abilities rather than the iconic ones as they hurt your main role and you can only have a maximum of 6 skills on the bar. Once you hit level 30 you'll have tons more skills than you'll actually need but it's good to have to pick and choose what skills you want. It makes you really focus on what play style you're going to use and helps you master it. I can't say anything about the combat, it really is the highlight of the game and I'm a PC gamer. I've used both the keyboard and mouse combo and the 360 controller and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Regardless, it's fun to beat people up with your powers and weapons.

Graphics - Oh, they are awesome. I have nothing to say about the graphics. Sure distant things look pretty bad but that's for server and personal computer stability. So as not to stress your PC or their server too much. Honestly I never really noticed it unless I was actively looking for it. The detail in the game is amazing and it seems to run perfectly fine on older rigs. My friend is using my eight year old rig (P4 ghz, 2gb ram and a 7600 Nvidia graphics card which I upgraded about 4-5 years ago) and the game doesn't lag one bit. I use an M11X R1 and I've had ZERO issues as well.

Glitches - There are TONS of these from crashing when you enter a dungeon to falling through the floor. The healing currently doesn't always work, so when I'm in a group sometimes I can't heal anyone other than myself. The only way to fix this is to let myself die and once I respawn I can heal again. The respawn rates (not sure if it was intentional but it seems more like a mistake than anything else) are rediculously high. I kill an enemy and move to the next, before I get my first hit on the second one the one I just killed aggros me. Seriously, it's annoying because it's easy to get overwhelmed at times since if one comes to attack you his buddies will also. In higher levels it gets a bit better (or at least for me since I'm a healer) but it is annoying none-the-less. There are more glitches but these are the ones I've run into the most. The only one I haven't run into is the falling through the floor, I bought this game for a buddy of mine and he stopped playing because any time he landed he'd fall right through the floor with no way to return other than waiting 10 minutes or porting back to HQ. Aside from the glitch where you fall through the ground, they are all well known glitches.

End Game - You level to 30 in about two weeks if you only play about an hour a day or so. Once you get to level 30 that means you've done the main quest line and probably most if not all the side quests. The only thing left is either to PvP or run instances or you can reroll and do it all over again. I did it three times and by the second time I found myself slightly annoyed. By the third time I rerolled, I actually got bored and gave up on the character. Unfortunately, since instances are such a pain to get into and the queue is so long at times, it means you'll spend a lot of time just waiting unless you already have a group and even then it could take a bit long. The main redeeming quality is that the devs promised to release new small content once a month and once big chunck of content once every three months.

Economy - There isn't any. There's no reason to buy from other players, no reason to buy from stores and no idea why Batman is giving me 11 dollars to stop the joker from blowing up half of Gotham. Money is only used to purchase soda (potions), costumes you don't already have and for repairs. The main stuff to look for at the end of the game in terms of loot is the special high tier armor for either PvP or PvE. Each one has a different armor set.

Conclusion - The game is fairly new and honestly seems to just be aimed to make a huge bang at the start and then drag on until new content is released. The game was amazing for two weeks but after that, it became stale really fast especially since I had no real way to chat with my league other than sending tells to each person individually. I'd try and get people to join in world chat to do things but there usually weren't enough people to team up with for instances and when there were, the wait was so long that most would just go about doing their own thing and leave the group. The game is still in beta, I'm going to stay on board with it for another month to see if they fix the chat and the issue with the instances. This game isn't going to fail but it isn't going to be a huge success either. I'd tell anyone thinking of getting this game to buy it but after four months or so. Right now, it's short on content and the community aspect is broken. It isn't a failed game by any means, but it will mostly be enjoyed by those that don't enjoy the social aspect of MMOs too much. For me, a community is very important and without it a Massive Multi-player Online game isn't very massively multi-player. At least the devs seem to be actively working on fixing the glitches. Unfortunately, I noticed that in one of the updates all they did was change the icons as if that's really what players were worried about. Aside from that, the game has improved from the release date although some odd glitches keep popping up. (like one that popped up yesterday where you lose your connection once you try to enter a dungeon, but the devs already stated they were working on it.)

5/17/2011 Update: Unfortunately, after playing for so long I've decided that it just isn't worth it. The devs failed in their promise for content in a timely manner and glitches have only gotten weirder and more frequent. With each update (they promised one every month since release and have only had 3 so far and they keep getting further apart) they claim to get rid of some glitches while adding a huge amount of new ones. The only reason I lasted this long was because I joined a league that was populated with amazing people but I just couldn't deal with the dull lifeless world. I'd only log on to enter the same instances over and over to collect marks to buy the higher tier armors. There just isn't anything at all to do aside from grinding the same missions. There are races but they aren't fun or addictive for the most part, just a challenge. You could also focus on getting achievements but when that's one of the main activities in the game it speaks volumes about the lack of content. After the first month and a half of playing this is all there was to do. I stayed this long because the combat was amazingly addictive and fun but even that has changed as the dev's answer to fixing "exploits" is to add a timer between moves and if you do a move within that time it does zero damage until you stop the combo and restart. An odd and extremely lazy fix. The game had potential but the player base has lost faith in the devs for this game and have left in droves. I recommend this game as a standard type of game, not an MMO. Meaning that you should enjoy the one month and then move on to your next game. I don't see why I should pay 15 dollars a month for this game as there's absolutely nothing to do after maxing out your level which is done in two weeks at most. The instances you grind in the end are the same ones you go through as you level up. With about 8 instances that are duo (for two players only) and about 7 for parties of 4 it gets dull. Doing those exact same ones indefinitely to get marks to get better armor to go back and do them again. No real purpose in it. The raids are fun but they're either ridiculously hard or extremely easy. They don't seem to know how to balance the difficulty in the game. Once instance which was the hardest to do indefinite spawns was changed to the point that we finished it in 33 minutes. The time achievement was 60 minutes max. When we first did the run it took us about an hour and a half and the second time we got the achievement with three seconds to spare by pure luck. We finished in 33 minutes even though they had to wait for me because I crashed and then had to wait for one of the guys because he had to go on a smoke break. Plenty of MMOs out there that are free and include tons more content. Heck, tons of freeware games that have more content. If you have other games your interested, I suggest spending the money on those first. I stick by my previous review, I just don't feel like this is a real MMO. It's a game you play for a month and then dump it. If you're so interested in parting with 15 dollars a month, there are plenty of other games that are better. If you're itching for an action combat system then wait for TERA or Firefall. Read more ›

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars It's got some good aspects, but also quite a few weaknesses January 26, 2011

By Robert Carnevali

Platform for Display:PC Download| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 3.0 out of 5 stars   

Being a comic book fan and a regular player of "City of Heroes" (a different PC-based online multiplayer role playing game), I couldn't resist getting "DC Universe Online" and fighting alongside the iconic superheroes I grew up reading. Who wouldn't want to make their own superhero and fight alongside Superman or Batman? There's fun to be had in the game, that's certain, and there's quite a few good aspects to the game, but there's also quite a few weaknesses in the game... things you expect to find in a PC-based game but are absent here.

The storyline is that at one point in the near future in the DC Universe, Lex Luthor staged a massive battle against the greatest heroes, enlisting other supervillains to help him, and he actually won. His victory was short-lived because as soon as the heroes fell, Brainiac invaded earth and took it over. Brainiac had been using nano technology in the form of small devices that spread across the earth gradually stealing superpowers from people. With Earth subjugated now, Lex collected these device from Brainiac's ship and went back in time to just before his battle against Earth's heroes to warn them of what the future holds. He also released all of these nanobots so that they went around imbuing people everywhere with the stolen superpowers, powering up thousands of people everywhere so we could be prepared to fight Brainiac. This is where you come in. You are one of those people and you now have superpowers that can be used for good or evil, but will ultimately be used to help defeat Brainiac.

You can create a character for yourself and choose several different aspects of how you appear and what your powers are. You can fall into one of a few role.... You can be a tank and deal damage and get enemies to focus on you instead of more fragile teammates; you can be a controller and help buff your teammates or weaken the enemies; or you can be healer and restore health and power to your team. There are preset power groups you can choose from, and each group is broken down into two subgroups. For example, Sorcery gives you access to the Destiny group with powers that directly curse enemies or heal teammates, and it gives access to Summoning where you can summon creatures to assist you or barriers to protect you.

Along with the power group, you can choose a fighting style. You can be a martial artist or gunslinger or swordsman or staff weilder, for instance. Once your fighting style and power choices are made, you can also choose what superpower you have for traveling around the city. You can choose flight, superspeed, or acrobatics. Flying is pretty self-explanatory. Superspeed lets you move like the Flash, quickly covering ground and running up the sides of buildings. Agility lets you move fast and scale any surface, and as you drop from heights, you can sort of glide, covering larger distances more quickly.

Once your powers are selected, you choose your appearance and do have quite a few choices in your costume, and then you begin on Brainiac's ship where you have to escape. That escape serves as the tutorial. Once complete, you're in Metropolis or Gotham (depending upon which mentor you chose when you created your character), and Oracle (a DC character) talks to you via radio and guides you on missions.

The good: The game world is beautiful. It's wonderfully designed and expansive. Missions are either within buildings, or outdoors in key sections of the city, and the city seems like the DC Universe brought to life. Voice acting is good, animations are good, and the game plays like an action game more than an MMO. Missions are grouped together to form little storylines, and the storylines are very reminiscent of DC stories. For example, Gorilla Grod is once again trying to take over the world by devolving people back into apes. Mission arcs are broken down into several smaller missions, and completing the entire arc gives points. With the Gorilla Grod storyline, you start out by protecting people on the beach from the gorilla scouts and then get clues from the scouts, then you head to the boardwalk to break up their devolving machines. Once that's done, you head into the city and clean out some rooftops where they're setting up communications arrays and more devolvers, and you eventually work your way to Gorilla Grod's lab where you meet up with the Flash and help defeat Gorilla Grod himself. Graphical effects are good and animation is also good. What's nice is that in this huge vibrant city, there are many areas where the signature villains are carrying out their nefarious deeds. It's nice to have this HUGE city with hotspots spread out. It feels right. Action is fast, and it plays like an action game.

The bad: It plays like an action game. The MMO aspects are quite weak. Though you get either a skill point or power point with each level you attain, you can only have access to six powers at a time. Attacks are carried out by combinations of mouse clicks, so you always have access to all of your attacks, but you can only choose six powers that you have on your power bar (access by pressing numbers 1 through 6 on your keyboard) at a time. To alleviate this only slightly, you can have two preset configurations set up and switch them when you're out of combat. This is how you choose the role you are when you're in a team. You can choose that when teamed, you're either going to be dealing damage or being a controller/healer, for instance. Your powers then act a little differently depending on your role, and you can choose which power loadouts you'll use. But once again, you only have access to six powers at a time.

Targeting is glitchy, and it's far to easy when mashing the buttons on your mouse to defeat one of the enemies surrounding you, but have the target switch to a group across the street in the middle of mashing your buttons and wind up angering them and having them run over to fight you too, giving you too many enemies to handle. The chat function is also very weak, I've never seen a chat system more bare-bones than this. The window has two tabs so you can either see local chatter from other players (and messages for you), or a combat tab where you can see messages pertaining to your fight (for example, an enemy hitting you generates a message, a power recharging generates a message). When a message comes across a tab that's not actively displayed, the tab flashes. But there is no way to go to that tab other than calling up the main chat interface, which fills the screen and prevents you from doing anything.

You see, the PC game is a direct translation of the PS3 game. As such, elements on the screen such as health, status, power bars, chat windows, etc. are totally static and unmovable. The chat window is to the left of and above my power bar across the bottom of the screen. Since my display is high resolution, there's plenty of room for the chat window to be moved down into the corner, but it's raised above the power bar so that it can't accidentally overlap the power bar on lower resolution displays. Since the game was designed to be played with a PS3 controller, there's only a few buttons that actually do things. That's why you only have access to six powers.... it would be too difficult to have more because the PS3 only has a few buttons you can press. Moving your mouse moves the camera angle and your power of view around, but you never get a mouse pointer unless you open up a menu. Forget about clicking on objects in the world. This really is a console game and is also why the game plays like an action game.

The RPG functions are rather weak in that even in control/heal roles, there is little variation to perform (the limit of six powers at a time). Because of this, there is a tendency to just mash your mouse buttons for attacks and occasionally press your power buttons to take out tough enemies. Since you don't have a mouse cursor, you can't even scroll through the various missions you have lined up. It's easy to wind up with more missions than can fit on the screen, but you can't scroll through them to choose ones that appear off-screen.

There is a design flaw in the central hub of the game, the Watchtower satellite that ties together all of the various zones. The Watchtower is HUGE! Navigating through it is difficult even with the minimap. While it looks incredible and fits into the DC Universe very appropriately, actually going there and talking to people or changing zones is time-consuming. I actually got lost in it and spent 15 minutes trying to find the exit I needed.

Your travel powers are fun, but are a bit lacking. They move you faster through the world, but still feel somewhat slow. And they negate for a brief time if you attack or are attacked. For example, you're in superspeed mode zipping along, and a villain on the street fires at you, so you drop to normal running speed for a period. Since the villain can run as fast as your normal running speed, he just keeps running after you shooting and preventing you from superspeeding away. Inside missions, the constant battles keeps you constantly moving at the suppressed speed. A good point I've seen is that the travel powers can be expanded to include attacks and such, though I haven't tried them out yet.

Along with normal powers, you get access to "iconic powers" at level 10 on. Things that DC characters have like Heat Vision or Freezing Breath. Some of these iconic powers are quite... useless. For example, "Word of Power" is supposed to be reminiscent of when Billy Batson says "SHAZAM" and turns into Captain Marvel. A bolt of lightning comes down, knocking back enemies around you and healing you. Obviously a power to be used in combat. The problem is that you levitate for several seconds while the power charges up and you can't do anything during that time. Every single time I've tried to use it in combat, it caused me to die because I wasn't fighting back while I was waiting for it to activate.

OVERALL: It's fun, that's for certain. It's bright and colorful and well-scripted. But it's also a tad repetitive because of the limits on the choices you can perform (only six powers at a time, only two buttons for performing attacks). The stories are fun and the world is stunning, but it lacks features found in newer games because it never takes advantage of having a mouse and is simplified for use with a controller on a game console. Long-term playability, I feel, is weak. While it's fun at first, I imagine in a month or two, you may not be renewing the subscription. Yes there are some bugs, but I don't list them because they will get fixed. Instead, I focused on design elements that are less apt to change. Read more ›

48 of 56 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Strong Start January 12, 2011

By OSUMicroBio

Platform for Display:PC|Edition:Standard

Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars   

First off, let me say that I have played many MMO's in my years (EQ, EQ2, SW, FFXI, WoW, Vanguard, CoH, Aion) many from their launch date and I must say that DCUO has a very strong start. I will try to break this down into different areas that I have played so far:

Character Creation:
What can I say about this? As would be expected with a superhero MMO, this is an extremely strong point. You can literally create any hero you want with any color combination (limited to 3 main colors or you can pick a favorite hero and have the game make a char with a similar look and feel to that hero) and equipment combo you want. There are three main "Classes" that you will pick from (Defensive, Controller, Healing) which will define you in group role. Of these classes there are 2 different types of powers you can pick from (I.E. I made a controller with mental powers, I use illusions and telekinesis as my supernatural powers). After this you will be asked to pick a weapon that you will use (there are loads! Everything from bows to staves to pistols to giant 2 handed weapons). Then you choose a travel mode (Flight, Speed, or Acrobatics) which is how you get around. Creation is strong, and you can spend a lot of time making the exact hero you want (I think I spent almost an hour)!

Combat:
There is a major stray from your typical MMO in their combat system which will be good for many and, I am sure, bad for just as many. The combat system follows a more combo/interactive style. So for example, my char, the bow wielding mental maniac shoots his bow with right mouse, can charge a shot by holding right mouse, bashes with the bow with left mouse, and has several combos revolving around this.... Powers are used by your typical "Toolbar and mana/energy system" But by doing this minor change to combat DCUO has made combat much more interactive rather than a spam of "Rotations". I think combat will be strong in this game

Graphics/Sound:
Also strong in this game, everything I have encountered so far is voice acted and voiced pretty well. Graphics are beautiful. Good to see. However, at a distance, I have seen some enemies being rather choppy. I am not sure if this is due to high player volumes on launch day or if it is a game issue. If you can run this game at max graphics you'll be happy.

PVP:
Haven't had a chance to try this yet, unfortunately. I do have a questline to open up arenas and there are the equivalents of battlegrounds. I also play on a PvP server but have yet to fight my first villain in world PvP!

Quests/Experience/Gear:
The quests are pretty inventive and seem to all be large questlines that progress into larger and larger events. An example is last night I was in Metropolis and there was an Ape Supervillain (sorry I am not terribly familiar with anyone who's not a major player in DC) that was devolving citizens into apes. Superman called me for help and, of course I obliged. The first quest was to take out ape guards that were devolving citizens. I then went to take out their reinforcements and fuel supplies. Then I was asked to go re-evolve citizens. Then take out the machines allowing this to happen. Then The Flash went missing and I was asked to help(and it was bedtime). You will get your generic kill monsters quests, but they are spun into a story that makes it less mind numbing. Leveling is going pretty fast (but it is still early in the game). And gear, from what I can tell, is similar to most games with your common/good/rare items. One thing to say about gear is that the gear will change the look of your hero but you can change this to keep your 'classic' look or continuously upgrade your look.

Overall:
I think this has a very strong start for an MMO, however, the upcoming months will really show whether or not the game will live or die. It is hard to tell if it will become a big player on the MMO market until some time has passed, but the game did start off on the right foot if you ask me. It definitely IS a step off of the beaten path, but that will appeal to many since we have been seeing games that are practically clones of each other over and over and over.

Hope this review helps you! Read more ›