Memoires of a game-hopper
Disclaimer: No one makes you read this :) I'm attempting to give balanced reviews of the games I play. I will not post reviews of games I play for less than a week. Want to submit a balanced review? PM Me.

Disclaimer: This is the experience of someone with 1 EVE character that has 13M SP (about 6 months /played I think)

Pros:

• I always attempt to decompose EVE to professions. EVE is the only game where Trader really is a profitable profession. Simply by taking 30 minute trips across the game world you can reap enormous profits to ease the ISK grind.
• GTC trading: Eves biggest obstacle is the ISK Grind. Although in the longterm its best to sort out an isk grind ingame - the introduction of GTC trading allows people to legitimately buy ISK.
• End-game market continues to deflate reducing the reliance on an enormous corp to obtain good ships.
• Constantly adding end-game ships & mid-game ships. People willing to specialise early will find themselves in something very useful within 3 months.
• Hi-Sec mining prices have gone through the roof. Even a slightly industrial character can make money quickly.
• Extremely structured PvP. In-game voice and constant improvements to the party interface.
• People are returning to hi-sec. Example: Red vs. Blue corp - a constant empire war that you can leave at any point.

Cons:

• No attempt made to combat lag in populated areas.
• People expecting structured content will still find themselves dissappointed. Even between level 1 and level 2 missions you will find enough repeats to get fed up.
• Bob pwn.
• Still just feels like 10 different grinds to choose from or PvP RP.

If you're thinking "OMG we don't need another WoW review" then push the key on your keyboard above ENTER :)

I'll keep this as balanced as possible.

I say this is attempt #3, I took a short break in the middle but returned the same character.

Pros:

• SOLO PLAY SOLO PLAY SOLO PLAY :) You can get to maximum level without talking to another player and the online guides are getting extremely efficient. 1-70 in 8 days /played is feasible for most. This is excellent as lot of the more undesirable WoW players dont make it to end game.
• Solo epix :) Arena seasons are continuing to hit the PvP vendors and some season 2 welfare epics beat the first raid. In short: You can solo gear that will more than qualify you for end-game proficiency.
• Instant Action: Even WoW is plagued by time spent LFM. Battlegrounds are still continuing to offer instant-action for people with very little playtime.
• BoJ: Incentives for running heroic dungeons continue to improve with the free sunwell patch. For people that want to group constantly they will always come with something.
• A vast array of levelling areas guarantees a variety of different paths from 1-70. With some pre-calculation you could level 2 characters without hitting the same xp zones twice.

Cons:

• WoW has the worst community of any game - end-game raiding is plagued by a general impoliteness that ruins the fun.
• Make the ragequitting stop.
• Roll a tank or GTFO. Even priests are in excess on some servers, either roll a warrior and be shunned in heroic instances and good at single-boss tanking or roll a paladin and be sidelined as an off tank in raids.
• Daily heroic or bust: I found it extremely hard to start or find a group for anything other than the daily hc. It seems as though people just log on to do it then log off again.
• Lowbie groups becoming much less frequent. People are requesting boosts from guildies in place of just partying. People wanting to experience ALL of the content at the right level will be dissappointed.
• BGs are boring. Although pvp welfare epix aren't always the best, for somethings they will be and people are so rude in BGs that it becomes this horrific part of the game that everyone hates except a twinked PvPer.

I thank SOE for its free month :)

Disclaimer: This is a review of levels 1-25 on an EU PvE server from the perspective of someone that has played 2 characters to level ~50 previously.

Pros:

• I forgot how good the talents system is. There's an intense incentive to solo for talent xp.
• Enough lowbie parties to get by if you solo in the meantime.
• Definitely some performance improvements since last year.
• There's a good variety of levelling areas for solo play. 3-5 areas per range decreasing with level.
• Expansion packs came with new mid-level content and starting areas.
• The class variety is huge with a dozen classes and 2-3 versions of each class (36 total I think).
• Every few levels you will find yourself imbalanced when you get that uber skill - very fun :)

Cons:

• Classes that can't solo will still find themselves behind on talents.
• You really need an active alt-playing guild to level up. I was sat LFM and watching full parties of guildies enter the dungeon.
• No additional mid-level group content. Still only 1 dungeon / 10 levels past 25.
• I don't like cramped dungeons and EQ2 is cramped dungeon fest.

Disclaimer: This is a brief review covering my experience of levels 1-7on an EU server from the perspective of someone that has played twice before.

I'm too lazy to get dates for my previous DDO attempt.

After an enjoyable month of free SOE games I broke the pattern to resub DDO. I'll keep this short.

Pros:

• New Class: Monk. SWG fans will know this as TKA - Good tank. Good dps. Holds agro through good dps (rather than taunting) and with the current imba dps is the best tank (given that WF needs a sorc).
• The favour grind still means that people stay in the harbour a hell of a lot longer.
• With a patience of steel you can find a party at any time of the day.
• Feat respec is balanced - achievable but far from allowing regular respecs.
• Multiple raids.
• Some low level dungeons re-jigged. Hard core players will notice instantly.
• Loading bugs fixed.
• A lot of 1337 players have gone. If you think someone is an ass then people will generally agree.

Cons:

• With 2 servers the populations are still limited, even at peak. Although peak has shifted slightly with more parties at midnight than 6pm. This was the reason I ended attempt #3.
• Favour grind still means people are pushing the elite button and whiping unprepared parties.
• Mutliple parties waiting on a healer, as a result battle clerics are popping up everywhere.
• The servers have level shifted - there can be 3-5 parties LFM for lvl 11+ and none below.
• Lower pop = hard to avoid someone you have a grievance with.

Generally all of the cons relate to the low population. People happy to sit LFM for an hour or repeat the same dungeon a lot might have more success than me.