DCUO's combat looks like an action game, but it definitely doesn't feel like one. Actions feel latent--you know, like the sort of latency you'd expect when connecting to an MMO server instead of a four-player action game or something. While you start to earn more powerful melee combos as you gain levels, the mushy, unresponsive feel of the attacks make you quickly mash out the full combo, rather than employing any sort of timing or, God forbid, want to decide mid-combo that you want to hold down a button to go for a different attack. With some attacks having extra effects, like interrupting an enemy that's in the middle of casting, the imprecise nature of your attacks can make combat frustrating. They never seem to work right when it counts. Still, it's usually fine enough for just mashing your way through mobs and soloing instances.
The quest design has a few very right, well-implemented ideas surrounded by a ton of filler. It starts with quest dialogue, which is usually spoken... except the PS3 version of the game currently has a bug that occasionally interrupts speech, and if you play long enough, the speech (and a lot of the other audio) eventually just sort of stops working. While some of the dialogue surfaces in your chat log, it doesn't always do so, and I've missed a few mission briefings, as a result. Not that this is a game-breaking issue. The game is usually pretty good about telling you where to go and what to do for each quest. The problem there is that 90 percent of the 100+ quests I've completed aren't any more complicated than "go to this area and kill 10 of these things" or "go to this area and collect 25 of these things." The only thing that makes some of them stand out is that you're being given quests by real characters like Superman, Batman, The Joker, and Lex Luthor, who have all been recast as middle managers that pop up in small bubbles to introduce new quests. I feel sorry for those guys, going from big-name superstars to hero-traffic controllers, but then, it's also a little strange that, at the start of the game, you basically hold your own as a lowly first-level hero in a fight against a bunch of Brainiac robots while alongside Superman or Lex Luthor. Shouldn't those guys be saving your pathetic ass instead of sitting in a room somewhere and directing traffic? In the limited cases where you do fight alongside named DC characters, they don't feel special. They seem like they're incapable of getting the job done by themselves and need to rely on shlubs like me to save the world.
But the best thing about the entirely of DC Universe Online, from what I've seen, has to be the way it handles character creation and customization. Faced with the issue of having you create a character at the beginning of the game and having that character look identical from start to finish or having your look entirely dictated by the gear you're wearing, ruining any hope of a cohesive design for your hero or villain, the developers have decided to split the difference. Most pieces of gear that you'll find are associated with a specific style, like "Fourth World" or "New Genesis" or "Biker." Once you've equipped an item with that style, you can swap that part of your look to that style any time you want. So if you collect a full set of Biker gear, but don't want to wear it because the stats for it are are all garbage, you can still go toggle the biker look on as a cosmetic option. You can also lock down any or all of your gear to a specific style, so equipping new back items won't remove your cape or putting on some new head armor won't cover up your sweet Final Fantasy-looking hairdo. While this creates the issue of not being able to tell which characters are bad-asses just by looking at them, it lets you play dress-up more effectively, which is probably the most engaging thing DCUO has to offer.
You'll find those additional costume parts as items that drop from enemies and as quest rewards, and the menus are at least good at telling you if an item has better stats than what you're currently wearing. In addition to actual gear, you'll also find vendor trash and items that recover health and power. The act of looting is surprisngly easy, also. Orbs that represent loot, XP, quest items, and money pop out of enemies when they die, and a quick tap of L2 and R2 will suck in all the nearby orbs. The game's also very kind about what counts as completing a quest task, avoiding the issue of kill stealing entirely by giving credit to anyone that got into battle near the quest item in question. So if you're fighting the guys that are guarding a quest item and someone else runs in and grabs the item while you're busy, you'll still get credit for it.
With the way the game's menus are designed, I found myself wishing for full mouse support, as navigating the menus with a gamepad and the occasional keyboard shortcut is clunky. Though the game supports voice chat when you're in groups, a keyboard is practically required if you want to communicate with other players, though even that support feels a little half-finished. Any time you go to chat, the big PlayStation 3 on-screen keyboard pops up on-screen, completely blocking the action. It's pretty lame. Without using keyboard shortcuts to get to the menus faster, you're left tabbing from one menu to the next with the gamepad, then waiting for it to pop up, then clumsily moving from one menu item to the next. It's a poor way to handle the numerous menus and sub-screens that an MMO requires.
In addition to the quest-related instances, you can also jump into specific instances, like alerts, which are instances designed for four-player groups. These whisk you away to spots like Area 51 or the Moon and give you a set of quests to complete in a smaller area. These also culminate in boss fights, such as a large, Brainiac-affiliated robot or Ultra-Humanite, a big gorilla that keeps shouting about how his adds need to fix the turrets you keep breaking. These alerts don't seem any better than the quest-line instances, though they, too, end with video clips.
There are also PVP arena-style instances, like a two-on-two control point battle in the Batcave or a four-on-four skirmish at Arkham Asylum. Playing these sorts of modes with the way this game controls wasn't much fun. Also, the game never seems to want to let you into these instances. You queue up for them from the menus, and then wait... and wait...and wait some more. I found myself waiting over an hour for one instance when signing up alone. Perhaps it's better if you group up ahead of time instead of relying on the game's player matching? The whole system feels a bit broken right now.
Overall, DCUO feels like a PC game that was hastily thrown onto the PlayStation 3 without properly adapting it to the console. With the PC version offering better graphical performance for a cheaper price, it would be the version I would recommend, if I were willing to recommend it at all. But the game's combat feels limp, the quest design is immediately monotonous, and the whole package manages to make being a superhero or villain feel like the most mundane thing in the world. Considering the game's "everyone's a hero/villain" plot, I suppose that makes perfect sense.
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