Gameplay: Ground combat is OK, pretty simple "press 1 to shoot, press 2 for special shot". Space combat, while frequently imbalanced due to blatant power creep (especially on the PVP side) is frankly awesome, with beautiful environments, incredible customization of vast numbers of possible ships, and missions that range from casual-friendly to gritty teamwork-demanding raids.
Story: It starts out weak, although the Romulan story is awesome, gets a lot better through Delta Rising (the forced Neelix presence excepted), and then drops through the floor in the Iconian War arc. The Kobali arc is reviled for its dubious morality, and the Iconian War is considered a massive disappointment due to the overuse of Hollywood Tactics and blatant railroading. This is partially a fault of the engine, which does not allow even the partial story customization that SWTOR does.
Community: Stay away from the forums. Starfleet Dental and Shutup Wesley are trolls, but throw great parties. Find a good fleet, and be sure to ask and shop around to ensure that you get a good one (not Dental). If you remember these rules, you will be fine.
FTP model: All content is free, which is good. However, the cash shop and lockbox ships are considerably better than most of the free stuff, though you can get some rather nice ships during the summer, winter, and anniversary events. Do NOT use lockbox keys, they are a waste of money. Safer to buy a pack of 10, sell them for several million credits on the exchange, then buy your lockbox ship from there.
Devs: Let's face it, PWE is only interested in your wallet these days. The devs try, but honestly after 2 divisive E Ps (especially De Angelo, widely hated for the last couple of big updates), bannings of many prominent forum members for arguing with PWE, and the Iconian War arc, the players and the devs have a lot of bad blood between them, especially the PVP players who are pissed about getting next to no updates ever and having to deal with rampant power creep.
Power creep: The game's biggest drawback. The structure of the game is top-heavy, with a lot of grind in endgame PVE, but much less of a need to actually do all of the grinding. Basically, you'll grind your Borg reputation set, grind level 5 on all reps, then never touch most of the content again.
Good, not great.
Gameplay: Ground combat is OK, pretty simple "press 1 to shoot, press 2 for special shot". Space combat, while frequently imbalanced due to blatant power creep (especially on the PVP side) is frankly awesome, with beautiful environments, incredible customization of vast numbers of possible ships, and missions that range from casual-friendly to gritty teamwork-demanding raids.
Story: It starts out weak, although the Romulan story is awesome, gets a lot better through Delta Rising (the forced Neelix presence excepted), and then drops through the floor in the Iconian War arc. The Kobali arc is reviled for its dubious morality, and the Iconian War is considered a massive disappointment due to the overuse of Hollywood Tactics and blatant railroading. This is partially a fault of the engine, which does not allow even the partial story customization that SWTOR does.
Community: Stay away from the forums. Starfleet Dental and Shutup Wesley are trolls, but throw great parties. Find a good fleet, and be sure to ask and shop around to ensure that you get a good one (not Dental). If you remember these rules, you will be fine.
FTP model: All content is free, which is good. However, the cash shop and lockbox ships are considerably better than most of the free stuff, though you can get some rather nice ships during the summer, winter, and anniversary events. Do NOT use lockbox keys, they are a waste of money. Safer to buy a pack of 10, sell them for several million credits on the exchange, then buy your lockbox ship from there.
Devs: Let's face it, PWE is only interested in your wallet these days. The devs try, but honestly after 2 divisive E Ps (especially De Angelo, widely hated for the last couple of big updates), bannings of many prominent forum members for arguing with PWE, and the Iconian War arc, the players and the devs have a lot of bad blood between them, especially the PVP players who are pissed about getting next to no updates ever and having to deal with rampant power creep.
Power creep: The game's biggest drawback. The structure of the game is top-heavy, with a lot of grind in endgame PVE, but much less of a need to actually do all of the grinding. Basically, you'll grind your Borg reputation set, grind level 5 on all reps, then never touch most of the content again.
Verdict: 6/10, could be better, could be worse.