I didn't play the beta, but because I've been looking for an MMO fix lately I decided to start in the "head start" of this one. Despite some of the things I originally heard.

As many have said, the character customization is top of it's class. All game's in this genre can benefit from learning how to enable your playerbase to take the types of control you can with your visual aesthetic the way this game does. Their are pages from this playbook ALL MMO's should be looking at.

As far as the game goes, i'm having a lot of fun with it so far. Have met a few friends playing, and again, the power set selection factor is very cool. I have a feeling long run though, their may be too much empowerment here and I could definately see a few "cookie cutter" conventions coming out of the woodwork 4 5, and 6 months down the road. Nevertheless, it's nice so far.

I personally like the approach to combat and power management they take. You essentially have a power bar, that your powers use in various ways, but then you have some powers and ways to build it up. So it's kind of like a little economy minigame you are learning how to manage with your character based on the powers you use, your stats, and the ways you recover it etc.

I also like the fact that many powers have "tap effects" meaning you press your button with a stroke and it will spit out a little burst fireball for example, and u can spit them in succession. OR, you can charge the button down, and build up a bigger blast, and pop your enemies with more punch and knockback for example. This creates a nice mixup game so you are no longer loading up "rank 2 fireburst and rank 2 massive fireball" and bouncing between the two.

No obvious bugs so far, server stability is fine (these guys have plenty of experience so thats expected). PVP, i've only ran a few little cagematches and while they seemed cool enough, its pacing was real fast and I felt like if you were melee-centric you would be at a big disadvantage.

I can't know what the attachment rate for this game will be like (as in, if its worth getting all the way to endgame over), because so far my novel experience could wear thin, but right now I've already felt like it was worth the money for the software and free month. Theirs enough convention change here in the combat system to tip my hat to them in comparisons to the others, and it doesn't feel too tacky/broken like AoC did. Anyone on the cusp, it's worth a try.