I started playing City of Heroes in March 2009, and it was my first graphical MMO (although I've played on text-based MU's since 1991). That gave me enough time to become a practiced veteran before Going Rogue shook things up, but not a jaded one. This review is aimed mainly at people who have existing City of Heroes accounts, but haven't yet upgraded to Going Rogue, but I'll have someI started playing City of Heroes in March 2009, and it was my first graphical MMO (although I've played on text-based MU's since 1991). That gave me enough time to become a practiced veteran before Going Rogue shook things up, but not a jaded one. This review is aimed mainly at people who have existing City of Heroes accounts, but haven't yet upgraded to Going Rogue, but I'll have some notes at the end for total newbies. In many ways, Going Rogue feels "City of Heroes 2.0", including all the incremental improvements made to the game in one chunk, plus a few other changes. Okay, so there's still loads of legacy graphics issues (mitten hands, travel speed limits, etc) so it's not really a 2.0, but playing through the 20 levels of a Praetorian character is qualitatively different from playing those levels in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. Mostly it's improvements, integrating things like branching mission choices and lessons learned about the use of zones, so that you get that sort of thing from the beginning rather than only in certain arcs or certain places on the map. So, it's different. Is it better? Mostly, yes. Praetoria lacks a few things that I hope get added back in later, such as field analysts (you can't choose to do easier or harder versions of your mission, leading to the running gag, "Do you question Emperor Cole's ability to assign missions appropriate to your ability?") or something like the radio/newspaper missions (if you're trying to roleplay and only choose missions from a single path at a time, it's easy to run out of contact missions and have to hunt random street targets to level up enough for the next contact). There's also no Supergroups/Villain Groups (the ease of switching sides would make them tricky anyway), no Architect Entertainment and no Arenas. But these are relatively minor issues unless you have a very specific playstyle and can't engage in it with the defaults.
Control over choices in the missions is a definite plus, though, meaning you can run through the same content repeatedly without it going stale so quickly. Okay, missions involving one particular enemy got stale quickly anyway, because my initial few characters were ill-suited to fighting them. :) Another plus is that they've learned a lot of lessons about layout, and even the lack of Bank Mission-granted movement powers isn't a huge barrier (at least if you have Ninja Run from the Martial Arts Booster). There's no two-mile-long zone like Independence Port, and the new system that lets you see clearly across zones helps make the city feel bigger without making it more of a slog. And then there's the little things, like putting nurses selling Inspirations inside and outside every hospital aboveground...if you have to go to the hospital, after all, odds are you just burned through a lot of Inspirations trying to avoid that fate, and having to divert to a contact or AE to refill before going back to the mission can be a pain in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles (mind you, the underground zones are a little more hostile in this respect, but they're meant to be more of a challenge anyway).
As for the actual missions, I've now run most of the arcs (I think I'm missing one of the Neutropolis arcs), and there's a very good sense of connectedness. Secrets are revealed over time. NPCs recur (although sometimes they come back after being killed off, despite systems in place that usually remove them from your personal path if they die in-story), a bit player in one arc may end up the prime mover of a later arc. You really have to play all four paths (Loyalist Power, Loyalist Responsibility, Resistance Crusader, Resistance Warden) to see the whole story...and even then, several arcs end with teasers for more once Praetoria is expanded to higher levels.
I don't have much to say about the new L20+ content yet, since I've been focused on the Praetorian elements. But I like how the Tip missions work, and even if you don't want to deal with the alignment system they provide another source of renewable missions if you don't like your contacts and have already done too many radio/newspaper missions. New tips drop often enough that you can usually count on having a couple left to do, presuming you haven't hit the daily cap.
I don't have much space left, so here's a quick note for prospective new players: This is a good game. But I suggest you not start play in Praetoria, start as a regular hero or villain. Praetoria is also more challenging, with objectives that may not be as obvious, loads of ambushes, and vastly smarter low-level enemies. Buy Going Rogue, start in Paragon.… Expand
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