City of Villains

City of Villains™ is the standalone sequel to critically acclaimed MMORPG City of Heroes®. Using a staggering assortment of new powers, abilities, and customization options, players can now experience sinister game play from the other side of the mask. With diabolical craft and guile, players forge new super-powered villain characters in an attempt to dominate the world. Heroes and authorities of Paragon City will do all in their power to thwart these evil plans of destruction. It will take a supreme effort for true domination.More information.

Note that City of Heroes and City of Villains are now truly combined. If you buy one of the games, you get both. See the July 16th, 2008 news item.

I know. I just haven't had the time to merge the two entries yet. I won't forget it, so it will happen eventually.

How is as an MMORPG? comparable to WoW? better? worse? compared too Guild Wars or D2. Can anyone who played it tell a bit more of it? action driven? deep story?

Sorry for all the questions but it always seemed as interesting game but never interesting enough.

I enjoy it greatly. I prefer City of Villains over Heroes, but both sides have their appeal and you get both these days.

It is not deep at all, really. A lot of the story arcs villain side ARE well written if you read the pre-mission quest text, but for the most part if you enjoy teaming you'll blow through levels without ever seeing any of those cool story arcs… teams prefer the random mission generator because it's safer and less time consuming, so more xp per minute.

These days, though, they've added a feature called Flashback. At level 25 or higher you can go back and do any arcs you missed from the level bracket below you and down (so at 25 you can go do any level 1 to 20 arc whenever you want).

The issue updates are excellent and paid for in your subscription… adding new powersets to the game or even just taking powerset from one archetype and reinterpretting it for another — which adds dozens of new 'classes' to the game.

The game is meant to play a host of characters… though there are things to do at max level now, I find more enjoyment in taking another character up through the levels or flashing back to see stories I didn't.

Additionally, if you're obssessive compulsive, there's hundreds of 'badges' to earn… some of them add cool stuff to your character but mostly it's just for fun/challenge. I've collected nearly 300 with one character.

To be fair, though, the badges and such are distractions from the fact that the game is as hamster-treadmill as they come. It's one of those games where you can either accept that you'll have to kill things over and over again for a few hundred hours to reach the top, or swear the game off forever.

But at least you get to 'grind' by doing things like unleashing a torrent of raw power that sends every enemy in your immediate area flying into the walls, utterly defeated, while shrugging off hails of bullets and atomic blasts from giant robots. Style is everything.

in fact, games nowadays are not quite different from each other. just play a game with your friends together. it will be more interesting for you

Originally Posted by MabelAC
in fact, games nowadays are not quite different from each other. just play a game with your friends together. it will be more interesting for you

City of Heroes/Villains is by far the MMO I've enjoyed the most, and I've played pretty much all of them since Everquest 1 beta. I always played in pickup groups, which many people seem to hate, but I loved specially in CoH. What made the game so exciting and enjoyable to me was playing through missions with different group compositions. Playing with 2 scrappers, a tank and a blaster is a totally different experience than playing with 1 tank, 2 blasters a controller and defender for example. And even then, each class could be any of dozens of variants (like bubble defender vs. empathy, etc).
On the other hand, when I couldn't find or form a big group, and had to do my missions solo, it was boring, so group play here is highly recommended.

Dan is playing City of Heroes & City of Villains as I type! They came as a package and he really enjoys playing as a villain as well as a hero sometimes

I should also say that it takes a lot less memory space than WoW - I just deleted that from the desktop… of course knowing Dan he will want to go back to it now, even tho he hasn't played it for a year!