what's good abut City of Heroes

Conceptually, it's awesome- couldn't be better. You are... whoever you are in your everyday life, but at night you go to Paragon City, don your alter ego, and fight crime. It integrates the player's real life as part of the game, fitting perfectly with the comic book hero concept.

They did a good job in generalizing the crazy variety of possible heroes into high-level groupings they call Archetypes. The archetypes themselves are well thought-out in their interactions. It encourages grouping because a lot of the classes (Archetypes, but i grow tired of typing that) are support- or cooperation-based. There's really only one or two classes that can go off completely on their own. I call them the 'selfish classes'. Most classes however, have some sort of weakness that is compensated for by the strength of another class.

Teaming is the best part of this game. When everyone works together, all the support powers work together, you're an unstoppable team. It's awesome to behold.

They've got that Marvel love of cool words. It's shot throughout the whole game, but one example is that you can earn titles such the Unyeilding [your hero name], the Rugged [*], or the Tenacious X. Very cool. It's like you have a comic of your own like the Amazing Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk.

The effects are very good. The types of powers are all visually distinct, flashy and cool, and very comic-booky. Energy blasts have those mod little op-art circles in them, they look great, pure Kirby Energy. The sound effects are also very good, all the more so when your remember that there's no sound in comics- you imagine all the sounds in your own head. They sound perfectly right for all that. I personally would have gone with sound effect words that pop up, Batman TV series stylee: ZOP! BORT! POOOO!

But some people might think that's silly. As if comics aren't silly.

Overall, i think they did a good job of integrating different types and styles of heroes and making them fit within their framework. You can play grim-n-gritty claw-slashin' heroes or cape-wearin paragons of justice if you so choose.