DESCRIPTION

City of Villains is the stand-alone follow-up to the successful "massively multiplayer" superhero game, City of Heroes. Players take the roles of super-powered scofflaws who, unlike their heroic counterparts, embark on missions of theft, sabotage, and other schemes of world domination. Like heroes, villains come in any combination of five archetypes and five origins. While the villain archetypes may seem similar to those of City of Heroes, they offer a different set of powers that can be best used together in different ways.

Brutes are strong and enduring, like heroic Tankers, but Brutes become more powerful as they take more damage. Stalkers are deadly melee combatants, like Scrappers, but they rely on stealth and surprise instead of speed and strength. Although they offer support in battle, like Controllers, Dominators have access to a power set that is more focused on dealing out damage. Corrupters also support the group, like Defenders, but become more powerful as they wear their enemies down. Masterminds may be the most unprecedented archetype, as their power set offers control over "pets," such as robots, zombies, or ninja minions.

Another major addition to the shared City game world is base-building. Groups of characters can pool their funds to buy a headquarters building, which can be developed with useful technology and defensive armaments. This base is where villains and heroes keep their collected crystals — valuable items that bestow bonuses on all group members. The danger of owning crystals is that they are so powerful, enemy groups may stage raids on the base to capture them. In addition to base raids, heroes and villains can also battle one another in the games' three cross-over PvP arenas.

City of Heroes offered one of the most powerful, engaging character creation systems of any game available at the time of its release, and the character-building tools in City of Villains are designed to be equally extensive. The interface works similarly to that of City of Heroes, and many of the costume parts are the same in both games, but villains have access to a number of outrageously evil items and accessories that no self-respecting hero would ever dare don. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide