DC Universe Online is a super hero MMO developed by Sony Online Entertainment for the Playstation 3 and the PC. In this article, we review the Windows PC version of DC Universe Online. It is the newest super hero themed MMO and the first to be licensed with real superheroes from a big name company like DC Comics. The game starts out with an awesome looking cut scene from the future where all the super heroes and super villains are engaged in a huge battle that takes most of each side out. After all is said and done the battle ends with Lex Luthor finally killing Superman, but his triumph is short lived when Braniac shows up to take over earth with super powers stolen from Earth’s greatest heroes and villains. So Lex travels back in time with Braniac’s technology to give super powers to many more people on Earth to help battle Brainiac and that is where the player gets their powers.

The game starts out with the player getting to create their character and choose their powers. First choice is whether you want to be a hero or a villain then after that you get to choose from 3 mentors on each side. Choosing a mentor changes where your character starts and dictates who you get to interact with the most. Mentors include; Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman for the hero side then The Joker, Lex Luthor and Circe for the villain side. After that you get to choose things like gender, body type and what kind of personality you want but the personality really only dictates how your character stands up. Next you get to choose between 6 base powers which will decide what role you have in groups. First there’s Fire and Ice which both will put players in the role of the tank, a character that gets the attention of all the enemies in a group because they can absorb and/or mitigate a lot of damage. There are Mental and Nature powers which give players the ability to heal themselves and teammates. Then there’s Sorcery and Gadget which put players in the role of the controller, a character that can buff their teammates and weaken their enemies in groups. Every power also has the ability to be a pure damage dealer. After choosing your powers you get to choose a weapon, ranging from swords to martial arts to dual pistols to bow and arrow. The melee weapons ended up being my favorite because it seemed like when I chose a ranged weapon it always seemed like I ended up having to smack them around anyways.

The final and most important part of super hero MMOs character creation in my opinion is the creation of the look and costume of your hero or villain but this falls way short in comparison to the other ones I’ve played. First off there’re only a limited number of costume choices for each category and the ones available just weren’t that appealing. This was extremely disappointing to me because some of my favorite things about the super hero MMO genre is the character creation, how in-depth they are and the variety of costume choices. One consolation though is that as you level up and collect gear your character can wear it forever even if they don’t have it equipped so there is costume customization even after you create a character.
Combat in DC Universe Online is action based like a beat ‘em up game and the game actually has physics unlike most other MMOs. Each character has a basic melee attack and a basic ranged attack which can then be used to perform more combos later on as the character levels up and will be what is used most during combat. Also depending on which power is chosen players will get skills and abilities as they level up that uses up energy. My big issue with combat is that it gets boring really fast and none of the powers really seem that cool. Another issue I have is when doing quests the enemies spawn way too fast and I often find myself fighting 3-4 enemies constantly until I either ran away or died because by the time I’d kill the second enemy the first one would respawn. This is also annoying because there would be quest objectives such as destroying a relay station but if I get hit while interacting with the object it would be interrupted so I’d have to stop and deal with the enemies but if they don’t stay dead it makes things very difficult.

Enemies won’t stay down:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i118YVfUo0

The main thing you’ll be doing in the world of DC Universe Online is questing and following the story of each chain of quests which normally end in an instance with a boss fight. Quests in DCUO are pretty basic as far as MMOs go, kill a certain number of these guys, interact with these objects and collect these things. Other than quests the game also offers Alerts, which are basically dungeons you do with a group, raids, arenas, which is just pvp, and legends battles in which a player gets to choose an iconic DC character to take into battle against other players.

Overall DC Universe Online is a decent MMO that just doesn’t seem like it would hold the attention of anyone but a big DC comic book fan. It’s pretty cool fighting alongside and against some iconic characters but it wears off after about the 10th level and then things just start to feel like a grind. Another big problem with the game is for an MMO it has a terrible chat system and friend interface. It is probably the worst I’ve seen in almost any MMO but this is something that can be easily patched and updated. Hopefully over time DC Universe Online will improve but for now it’s just very mediocre. If you’re a diehard DC comic fan I would recommend picking it up and playing it through the trial period but if you already play another MMO such as World of Warcraft then there’s not really much difference to justify picking this up.

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Buy DC Online Universe digital download from EBGames.com for Windows PC

Click here to digitally buy DC Universe Online from EBGames.com

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