DC Universe Online Review

Character Building

Your character is built off of one of six Power Sets. Ice and Fire are the Tanks, Nature and Sorcery are the Healers, and Mental and Gadgets are Controllers. Each of these can also perform as a damage-dealer (aka DPS) role. You then pick one of ten Weapon styles, and a movement power – Flight, Superspeed or Acrobatics.

As you level up, you earn Power Points that can be spent in your two trees (which are unique per Power Set) to gain new superpowers. You can slot up to six powers at a time, and you have a different Loadout for each of your Roles (ie: Tank and Damage) as well as any shapeshift or sneaking forms you may have.

Skill Points are spent in your weapon and movement trees. By earning new Feats (think of them as small achievements or trophies) you earn new Skill Points. So even after you hit level 30, your character continues to grow as you earn new Skill Points. Invest them in new weapon trees, and/or use them to increase your stats.

Combat

DCUO’s combat feels like a mix of God of War/Devil May Cry button-mashing combos with a touch of classic MMO spell-slinging. The combos boil down to taps or holds of your two main attack keys, melee and ranged. These attacks are also how you refill the power you use up casting your powers. A higher combo string leads to faster power gains.

Coupled with the combo system is the superpower system. These are your “spells,” as it were. Different powers will Interact with buffs or debuffs in certain ways. Doing extra damage to enemies on fire, or extra healing to friendlies under the effect of Pheremones are just two quick examples.

There’s a lot of strategy to the combat in DCUO, and it’s hard to summarize without writing an essay. Suffice it to say that a button-masher will likely struggle with the game a lot more than someone who takes the time to learn how their combos and powers interact with each other.

Content

As you level, you will be performing some of your typical RPG-staple quests. Kill X bad guys, loot X items, destroy X objects, guard X NPCs for Y seconds, etc. But it’s all fast-paced. There is very little running around finding quests then running back to turn them in, yada yada. Most quests follow an “Arc,” where you will be finishing 5-6 quests in a row and the only time you have to talk to an NPC is to start or finish one, or to pick up the side quests that are normally in the same area as the main quest you’re working on.

There are a handful of Alerts that you can fight in before 30. Think of them as four-person dungeons. There are PvP Arenas where two teams fight in various modes (Capture the Flag, Control Points, etc) and Legends, where you fight in similar PvP games as iconic DC characters such as The Joker and Batman.

Once you hit level 30, a bunch of new content opens up for you. Duos, Hard Alerts, solo Challenge missions, new PvP stuff and Raids all open up. The 5 different Duos and 6 Alerts (at the time of this review; they add new content every month or so) can be completed once per day for Marks, which are used to buy Iconic armour with awesome stats. Each of the 3 Raids can be done once per week for gear and Marks that exceeds the Duo/Alert stuff. 

Also worth noting; SOE has said there will be free monthly content additions as well as paid expansions every year or so. We’ve already seen the first content add-on hit a few weeks ago, adding a new Duo, some Valentine’s day content, a new Raid and a new Challenge.

Summary

DC Universe Online is a new breed of MMO that tries to reduce the heavy grind a lot of MMOs force on us and focus on making things fun. This won’t appeal to all audiences; the hardcore gamers may get bored of repeating the same content to earn their Iconic armour. 

All in all, there’s plenty to do as long as you broaden your horizons. Players that refuse to PvP or group up will find themselves getting bored doing the same daily solo missions.

Pros:

• Doesn’t take long to hit max level, meaning you can get to the fun stuff faster.
• The combat is fast-paced and fresh after years of turning on auto-attack then spamming 123 in other MMOs.
• The stories, characters and voice acting are generally top-notch.
• Wide variety of end-game content to perform.
• Earning new costume pieces and customizing your character’s style and colours however you want instead of just showing what you’re wearing.
• Strategy and skill win out over level, gear and button-mashing in both PvE and PvP.
• Healing and buffing are made easier. There is no need to target someone to cast beneficial powers on them. It auto-targets the group/raid members that need it the most, or just casts it on everyone.
• Everyone is fighting. Too many MMOs discourage healers from fighting during group or raid content. In this game, you need to in order to regain your Power.
• Death has no inherent penalty associated with it besides the wait for someone to Rally (resurrect) you or the time it takes to run/fly back to where you were. And a minor cost to repair your equipment.
• It’s fun. I haven’t had this much fun in an MMO in many years.

Cons:

• The end-game can be a bit repetitive if you only focus on one or two aspects.
• The early game was plagued with exploits and cheats, making PvP victories boil down to which team was exploiting more. This made a lot of early adopters give up on the game.
• Bugs. It seems every time they squash one bug, two more crop up. Overall, though, the game has improved steadily since Beta.
• Gankers. But what game doesn’t have this? Level 30s camping out the newbie areas and eating them up. Luckily, the community seems to be protective of their young, and a quick shout out for help often ends with them being chased away.
• Questionable difficulty. Some of the Raid content seems to boil down to luck over tactics at times. One boss battle involves sweeping insta-kill laser beams coupled with enemies that will throw you across the room. Did you land in a beam? Oh, sorry. You’re dead.
• Death during boss fights requires someone to Rally you, which is easily interrupted and on a very short timer. Failing that, you revive at a spawn point outside the boss room, which is locked until the boss or the remainder of the players die. I suppose they do this to discourage zerg tactics, but it still could use some tweaking.
• Long waits between patches. Presumably this is due to the PS3, having to pass heavy QA before they allow a patch to be pushed through. Conjecture at this point, but I don’t see why the PC wouldn’t be getting patched more often if not for the above reason.