Can Brainiac be stopped, or is this another nefarious Lex Luthor plot?
DCUO focuses heavily on combat. This is an action-based MMO where the majority of your time is spent fighting and, as such, you never really have to grind your way to the level 30 cap because reaching that next point happens regularly enough with fairly little effort. There are, however, skill and power trees, plus tons of different weapons and abilities that turn your fledgling superhero or villain into a very powerful, well-oiled machine. The further you progress, the more you witness your superhero evolve, and the tougher the quests and enemies become to defeat. You soon find yourself teaming up for raids with other players and gaining some sweet loot, or joining up for co-op missions. Like any good MMO, DC Universe Online lays the foundations down for a strong social community to embrace, which could stand it in good stead providing gamers continue to play over the coming months.With fighting taking up a large bulk of the gameplay, it inevitably becomes fairly repetitive against A.I. opponents, who you can often just button-mash your way through. However, from a visual perspective it does get progressively entertaining. Having chosen ‘fire’ to be the main ability of our superhero, as we leveled up we assigned points via the skill and power menu in return for stronger abilities, like absorbing heat, a supercharge boost, and the ability to fly even faster. Despite having to carry out the same type of missions over and over, gaining access to this wide range of new abilities means that leveling up and looting enemies becomes quite an addictive process. As it stands though, it's clear that there already needs to be some more variety. Exploring Metropolis and Gotham City is fun for a while - and the instances where you head off to places such as Area 51 provide moments of excitement - but considering this is an MMO it still feels rather compact and lacking in substance and depth. Of course, this should change over time, but we still hoped for a little more content from the outset.
As well as heroes and villains doing battle and showing off their range of powers, gameplay involves interacting with NPCs and picking up quests. There’s a lot of repetition and little variety in the missions, which generally involve killing ‘X’ amount of enemies before facing a larger boss. Side quests that are relevant to your faction, such as going on the hunt for thugs if you’re a hero, or planting bombs under cars if you’re working for The Joker, offer a welcome diversion. And there's fun to be had out of looting enemies and picking up wads of cash that you can spend at vendors, who sell anything from health items to knuckle-dusters. However, though there are some quests that manage to draw you right into the universe, there are others where you feel you're just going through the motions.
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