I don’t mind the art quality, per say, although a few animations could be streamlined. It’s the UI design that bugs the heck out of me; it manages to feel cramped on a fairly high-res monitor, and a lot of icons aren’t really meaningful enough for what they do.

You have to pay money to be part of this “open” beta – either via pre-order or a paid subscription to fileplanet.

These guys at Cryptic are some of the sleaziest, most dishonest MMO developers in the business.

http://www.frogdice.com/muckbeast/gaming_industry/sleazy-mmo-marketing-a-growing-disturbing-trend.html

For the longest time in closed beta, you got your travel power and another new power right at the end of the tutorial. However, that changed when they added “Power Stations” to the game. As soon as you leave the tutorial, you are directed to one of these Power Stations, where you can test each new power before actually committing to it. Kind of like the Danger Room of the X-Men.

I disliked the graphics at first, but they grew on me. I then later turned off some features, like bloom and liked them even more. The only problem I have with the graphics now is that they seem to tax my system more then they should. I hear my graphics card fan ramp up help cool. This does not happen in games with “good” graphics like LOTRO.