I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to beta test of the DC Universe Online MMORPG. I installed and downloaded the game Wed night and played for an hour Wed night and another hour Thur night. If you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve seen the beginning and the premise of the game. Here’s a quick overview of the game, based on two hours experience.

An alternate universe Lex Luthor comes to the Justice League to tell them of the disaster that befell his Earth. The heroes and villains fought so fiercely that they ended up destroying each other, paving the way for Brainiac to take over the world. Luthor came over to tell his story and to release exobots into the atmosphere. The exobots will give superpowers to anyone who they come in contact with. So a new generation of superheroes and supervillains are released. Luthor’s hope is that this will allow Earth to save itself from Brainiac. The subscribers to DC Universe Online will control one of these new heroes or villains.

After the trailer, I created my character. When creating your character, you pick from a slew of characters (male and female) to base your uniform off. You then get to chose what type of powers you want and which DC hero you want to be your mentor. There is some customization of uniform and powers, but it’s not at a very granular level. The whole process only takes a few minutes and you’re off and running in the game.

The game started with my character on a Brainiac spaceship. This is a solo training mission where you learn to control your character (both movement and fighting). After you complete the mission (with Oracle in your ear helping you out). At the end of the mission, you get a hand from Superman with the last battle on the ship and get transported down to HQ. At HQ, you get a tour of the place and then head out on your first mission.

So far, most of the game is basically run around fight bad guys and defend good guys. It is fun, but a bit repetitive. My hope is that as you power up and move to later missions, the challenges get more varied.

Overall it’s a decent game with the potential to be much better later on. If you loved the trailer, remember that the graphics in the game are not on that level. Overall the beta has been fun and well worth the time. I recommend the game and will check back in later with another review as I power up and get new missions.