For me, City of Heroes will always be the standard against which all super hero games are compared.  So please bear that in mind as I review DC Universe Online (DCUO).  Also consider that I am reviewing what most people would be playing, and that is the free version.  You can view a comparison matrix of the different subscription levels here: http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/free/

The story behind DCUO is pretty smart.  In the future, Lex Luthor finally masterminds the death of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman.  With the big three gone, the rest of the super heroes don't last long.  Unfortunately this leaves the Earth vulnerable to Brainiac, a kryptonian supercomputer that has long been Superman's nemesis.  Brainiac swiftly conquers the planet and digitizes everything for preservation in his vast memory banks.  Luthor escapes back to the past, with a ton of "exobytes", to warn humanity and prepare them to defend themselves.  The exobytes are like nanobots that contain and bestow the super powers future Brainiac has processed.  These are scattered across the planet and infect people, and this is how you get your powers.

Unfortunately, I wish Lex had managed to gather a larger variety of exobytes.  He only seemed to collect a few sets:  Fire, Ice, Sorcery, Nature, Mental, and Gadget.  For MMO veterans, the first two are Tanks, the second two are Healers, the last ones are Controllers.  A third controller class, Light, is/will be available as a paid add-on.

Each of these power sets contain a talent tree, like World of Warcraft's talent tree.  Every even level, you get a point to spend on your tree, thus learning a new power.  Some powers have prerequisites.  Some can't be unlocked until a certain character level has been reached.  Since level 30 is the max, you can learn up to 15 additional powers within your chosen set.

For the odd levels, you earn skill points.  Skill points can be spent on travel methods (like flying or super speed) or weapon skills.  Weapons in this game are a bit strange to me.  Once you've picked your power set for your character, you pick a weapon.  But the choice of weapon has nothing to do with the power set.  Every set yields the same choices for weapons: Bow, Brawling, Dual Pistols, Dual Swords, Hand Blasts, Martial Arts (with Katara blades), One Handed Axe, Rifle, Staff, and Two Handed Hammer.  It seems disjointed to me, since Hand Blasts are the only ones effected by your choice of power.  Even then, it's just the color of the blast that changes.

Once you've chosen your powers and weapons during character creation, you get to design your look.  They have a number of skins for your character, but there's no room for customization.  For example, one of the skins is "tattoo".  Everyone who picks that skin gets the same tattoos.  There's also a bunch of furry options, rock, lava, metal, glowing, and even undead.  But no variation within those choices.

Then you design your costume.  This is a sore point for me.  You spend a significant amount of effort trying to piece together the best combination of the 20 or so tops, bottoms, gloves, boots, capes, and headgear that depict the character and attitude of your hero or villain.  Then once you start playing, you pick up gear that bestows bonuses.  Of COURSE you're going to use the new chest piece that grants you 20 additional points of defense.  But this changes your costume.  This changes your look.  The only aspect of your design that persists is the colour combination.

Since you're starting as a plain human who has just acquired powers, they really should have started you off in plain street clothes, and not have you waste time designing an outfit that you'll alter before you even finish the tutorial.

So the big question is, how does the game play?  It's mission driven, like any MMO.  Go somewhere, kill/talk to/"collect" these things/people.  Report back.  Combat is really where a comic book game lives or dies, and I'm pleased to say this is a big strength here.  In other games, you choose your attack, and when it's your "turn" in the combat, you perform the action.  DCUO throws that out the window and uses a more console style button mashing combo style of play.  You've got your basic attacks.  Square for close hit, Triangle for ranged.  Hit the button, the attack is performed.  No waiting (unless you're in the middle of another attack move already).  As you learn new skills/powers, these unlock button combos.  Tap Square twice might be another attack. Hold Triangle down for another one.  Hold triangle, then tap triangle.  Press L2 + Circle.  etc.  Unfortunately, except for the L2 combinations, you can't assign button combos to attacks.  The attack description tells you what combo triggers it.  It's very much like fighting in God of War games.

The biggest downfall for DCUO is the login queue.  Often when I try to play, I'm stuck in a waiting list with 5000-9000 other players ahead of me.  This will often take 30-60 minutes to run down before I get to play.  So seriously, start it up, and go do something else for a while.  When you come back, maybe you'll be in the game.

This is even more of a nuisance for new characters.  After you've created your character, you have to wait to log in before you can play the tutorial.  WHY??  There's NO ONE ELSE in your instance of the tutorial!  Even worse, WHY not show the login queue in this case?  It literally leaves you stuck at the "loading" screen until you get in to the game, with no other indication of activity besides an ugly spinning logo in the bottom corner.

The Good: Console style combat.  A-list voice actors.  Well thought out story.
The Bad: Not a lot of choice in body styles.  Weapon choices feel limited/inappropriate.  Sometimes unclear if your attack got executed or interrupted.  Pointless costume customization.
The Ugly: The waiting time!  Ugh!  The Ambient "music" is as pleasant as nails on a chalk board.

City of Heroes is vastly superior in character customization and development, but DCUO is better action and well suited to console gaming.  Both have quite satisfying super powered attacks.  If only the login queue was handled better (or eliminated) in DCUO, I'd be playing it a lot more often.

A quick note about PvP servers.  When writing the review above, I had been exclusively playing PvE.  PvP has significantly shorter wait time in the login queue, but that's because the server is full of level 30 d!cks who get their thrills hunting down and killing low level newbies.  Yes, HUNTING DOWN.  They don't just kill you if they happen to cross your path.  They will go out of their way to chase you and bring you down.  Usually though, they sneak up on you while you're busy trying to survive your current mission.

On the plus side, it is REAL satisfying when you take down one of these punks.  I was playing a new villain last night, and one of these heroes tries to kill me while I'm on a mission.  I changed my attention to him and nail him with stun attacks.  I'm lettin' loose with everything I've got.  Chewing through my stamina like crazy.  Luckily this fool is only double my level.  Meanwhile the npcs I was fighting are still pegging me.  I need to shut them up.  So I haul this flying hero down to the ground with a vine, and hit him (and the npcs) with an attack that knocks back everyone in the immediate area.  Then I haul that hero back with another vine and slam him again with my best weapon combo.  Now he's trying to get away.  Not so fast loser!  I keep hauling him back and hammering him till he's down and out.  Ahhh retribution feels sooo good.

By the end I had a sliver of health and a sliver of stamina.  But I survived.

Think I'll play the PvP server a bit more now.  You've just got to keep your eyes peeled for enemy players in the vicinity.