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City of Momentary Heroes - Not long term players Like many, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to take part in one of the most cutting edge MMORPG's available. Let's face it, up to this point, every MMORPG has been a cookie cutter of the other. Until, Cryptic Studios and NCsoft brought us City Of Heroes. I have to say you can tell a lot of intelligent people are behind the development of this game, as it literally broke a stale mold... So What's Wrong? As fascinating as the concept is, (And who didn't want to be a superhero when they were little?) the actual gameplay factor becomes repetitive and mudane after level 20. It becomes a really monotonous level gring where the fun is lost somewhere in the demand to advance. It becomes increasingly difficult to fetch new experiences to maintain interest, and eventually the player comes to realize, while the concept itself is new for the moment, it has no momentum. There is also little opportunity for immersion. The actual game map is broken up into dozens of 'zones' where you can feeel isolated from the world around you, thus not apart of things as a whole. As where in other games, like Dark Age Of Camelot, or World Of Warcraft, you play with thousands of other people in a community type atmosphere in one fluid world (With the exception of dungeons.) Another dividing factor between 'you' and the rest of Paragon City is the lack of incentive to group. Most people are habitually grinding away with the intent to advance, not commiserating with other players, so you easily become and Island unto yourself. Finally, one of the only ways to advance in this sysytem of gamelay is to get missions from contacts. These missions send you to warehouses, sewers, other zones and 'ghettos' to kills one or more targets, or retrieve information. This exact formula is fun for 20 levels or so, but soon after become blatantly repetative and eventually boring. If you are looking for short term entertainment, something to break your current routine, it's a fine purchase. However, if you're looking for a long term investment, something to actually sink your teeth into and reach a specific goal while constantly interacting with an enabling world, this is most definitely a poor choice. Kids and adults alike will revel in City Of Heroes for a couple of weeks then gets an uncontrollable itch to go elsewhere, and your money goes down the drain.