I picked up the (FREE - 2.5 gigs) demo for this today, and WOW! The character customization is INSANE. I'm lovin' it so far. Granted, you only get about an hour of playtime at the most out of the demo - but it is very impressive. After lurking the CO forums for a while, I heard that the demo misses pretty much all of the game content, too, so I'm really excited as to what the whole game has in store. I'm gonna buy this - it seems VERY awesome. Graphically, it looks like a comic book - that, in itself, is awesome. The gameplay is very similar to WoW, just with a different basic keymapping. There are supposedly tons of instances, and the game devs are always busy pumping out new content. The key in this game, though, is the character customization. You design your equipment at character creation (and can edit it at any point in the game), so you can create an epic looking character right from the get-go. The devs are also constantly releasing new costume sets that you can purchase.
Oh, and THIS:
That's me.
EDIT:
For better or for worse, the game has a very high population of Furries. I think you can see why. Where the are lots of furries, there are also lots of trolls - I'll let you know if the trolls are ubiquitous or not.
UPDATE:I got one of my friends to referral me, so I have 10 days of (almost) full access to the game. You have complete control over all of your abilities, using only a preset of a couple of powers if you choose a class, or you can create your very own class. Every few levels, you can select a new power from any tree (fire, ice, gadgeteering, supernatural, etc.) to add to your character. The game is extremely fun, and is the first game that I really don't care about leveling in. All in all, the game is wonderful so far.
The only con that I can find with it, is that it forgets to tell you about some of the mechanics. To get new powers, you have to visit this area called the "Power House" - but I didn't know that until a friend told me. I also didn't know that you have to craft your own bags. These are just minor issues to me, though.
All in all, if you like MMOs, Champions Online is a great choice. After a few months of Aion, I'm switching to CO myself - Aion just doesn't have the some amount of variance in gameplay as CO. If anyone decides to trial this game, I'd be glad to referral you and give you a hand!
