Review: Champions Online

Champions Online is Cryptic Studios' latest entry into the Superhero MMORPG genre, representing several years of advancement in game design both for Cryptic and for MMOs as a whole. It's no longer a new field, and there are now certain expectations about what an MMO should contain, and how it should play. Two major factors to a new game's success or failure are the standards they embrace and do well, and the ones they reject and do differently. Champions Online succeeds at adapting many established concepts, while still setting themselves apart from the typical swords & sorcery backdrop. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.

• Title: Champions Online
• Developer: Cryptic Studios
• Publisher: Atari
• System: PC
• Reviewer: Soulskill
• Score: 8/10

First, a disclaimer — MMOs are unlike ordinary games because active development never really stops. Bugs and gameplay issues, once identified, are almost always fixed — indeed, one of the traits that distinguishes a good MMO from a bad one is how well and how quickly the development team solves such problems. Thus, this review will not focus on the minor, easily fixable problems other than to identify them and perhaps point out what Cryptic has said about fixing them, where applicable. On to the game itself.

Champions gets off on the right foot with an excellent character creator. The depth and level of detail for all of the customization options exceeds any game I've played, and it's pretty simple to find and select the look that you want. If you're the type who enjoys making your character picture-perfect, you'll love it; matching a costume to whatever vision you have for a character is surprisingly easy. There are enough options that I really don't see any player characters who look alike — or few enough that I don't notice. It also allows the irrepressible creation of characters from other intellectual properties. It's something I've seen less and less as time passes, so I assume Cryptic is clamping down on it (as they should; Marvel already sued them for the same thing in City of Heroes), but it's occasionally hilarious to see Duke Nukem, Dr. McCoy, or a WoW Paladin out killing bad guys.

The customization continues beyond the character creator, too. Throughout the game, you accumulate various powers — these are your skills/spells/abilities, everything from laser beams to giant fiery swords to huge explosions. There are a ton of powers to choose from, and each has its own graphical effect. The nice thing is that you can modify the colors of the effect and the location from which they originate. My character's first ability had him shooting red laser pulses from his fists, which I changed to be blue lasers shooting from his eyes. It's a nice touch that allows even characters with the exact same powers to look different. Beyond that, as you go through the game you can get items that unlock more costume options.

There's a tremendous variety to the powers you can use, to the point where it's almost better to figure out what you want your character to do — drop bombs, sling ice shards, Force-choke — than to look at the abilities and figure out which are the "best." They're divided up amongst 18 different "frameworks," which are collections of similarly-themed powers. For example, the Munitions framework contains powers that involve shooting various guns, dropping mines, throwing grenades, and shooting rockets. The "Unarmed" framework holds different punch and kick attacks, and the "Fire" framework has — you guessed it — fire spells. You're not restricted to a particular framework, which is nice. You can grab all your powers from a single one, or go into a different framework for each power.

It's fun to have so many options, but almost overwhelming if you're trying to min/max your character. My recommendation would be to not worry overmuch about picking the absolute best power. With a few exceptions, they're pretty well balanced — as well as can be expected for a new MMO — and Cryptic is already making refinements. More important is to select powers that have different effects. They're divided up and labeled such that you know which are for close/ranged attacks, area effect attacks, crowd control, healing, summoning, or buffs. In many cases, it's pointless to get two of a particular effect, so you want to diversify. You get a new power every few levels, and they really add to the depth of the combat.

Your character gets stronger in other ways, as well. You get "advantages," which increase the effectiveness of your powers, but you're limited into how much you can strengthen any one ability. It's another level of customization and utility, and they make interesting changes to your powers. You're also heavily dependent on stats. They're somewhat arcane and unintuitive (Strength is obvious enough, but what would you think "Presence" does?), but you'll do fine with the understanding that you should pick two and focus on them almost exclusively, as they'll determine your damage output.

The fighting is done against individual enemies or, more often, small groups. The non-player opponents you typically fight are classified as one of the following, from easiest to hardest: Henchman, Villain, Master Villain, and Super Villain. There are also Cosmic and Legendary Villains, but those are rare, and usually require a team to defeat. A more typical group will have a cluster of Henchmen, or a couple Henchmen and a Villain. The Henchmen die in a matter of seconds, but the Villains take a bit more work. As they get more powerful, you'll have to put some thought into how you want to handle them; there's a lot of content you can solo with some strategy and perseverance. Many of the powers you use complement each other in fun and interesting ways. A lot of them have short recharge periods (cooldowns), which you can fill by using a hold (crowd control) or knocking your opponent back, which delays them for several seconds.

Combat is fairly fast-paced, and it can involve a lot of movement. It feels like a hybrid between an MMO and an action RPG. Most powers can be used while on the move, giving you the opportunity to close with your attacker or maintain range, or perhaps duck out of line-of-sight just after your ability fires. You can also Block attacks. In fact, it's crucial to block some of them. Enemies will sometimes charge up big attacks, advertised by a growing symbol over their heads. When you see this happening, stop what you're doing and block it, or expect to take some serious damage. Blocking adds more depth to the combat, but is slightly hampered by the controls.

Cryptic clearly put a lot of effort into building a good system for game controls and the UI. There are a ton of different options for movement, targeting, and camera styles; you can play it like a typical MMO, or a first-person shooter, or Cryptic's own superhero MMO concoction, and it's well implemented. Unfortunately, there's a fair bit of UI lag. Server lag has been almost non-existent — amazing as that is to say during the launch period of an MMO — but the responsiveness of the controls is probably the game's biggest technical fault right now. It can be frustrating at times to have your abilities not work as you expect because of this. There's enough of a delay after hitting the button that you won't be sure if it actually triggered the ability. Many abilities require a button to be held down, so if you press it again and then the original trigger goes through, you've wasted a cooldown. Pressing Block right after charging up a power will also sometimes clip the end of it, and cause it not to fire. I would attribute the majority of my deaths so far to the UI lag. That said, it's not game-breaking.

Quests in Champions Online are called missions. A lot of it is typical MMO fare, but not all, and the mission system is streamlined and unobtrusive. The game world has several large zones, with quest hubs scattered about them. You'll get your standard "Kill N of X" and "Collect Y of Z" missions. You'll also get quest lines that tell cool stories, if you care to read them. Cryptic has stepped up the convenience factor in a few ways. First, your map is always marked with the area you need to visit to finish the missions. In other words, no more "Head past the Valley of Ambivalence and to the northeast corner of the Forest of Mild Discomfort to slay Ted the Impaler." It's simply displayed on your map (and minimap). Finding new missions is easier, too. You can open the "Crime Computer," which will tell you where various emergencies (i.e. missions) are located, and mark those for you on the map as well.

City of Heroes veterans can rest easy; the missions are a lot better in Champions. Most of them are out in the world. Some are instanced, but there are varying objectives, and I've never been sent into the same building twice, except when it makes sense for the story. Another nice feature is that you'll occasionally stumble across a civilian being accosted by villains out in the street. If you save them, they sometimes give you a mission. You can also find missions just by moving around — as you pass by a bank that's being robbed, you'll be given a quest to stop it, without having to even talk to an NPC. There are several Open Missions in each zone, too. These are missions everybody nearby can participate in, and you get rewarded based on your level of contribution. Cryptic is still working the bugs out in a few of these, but they're fun, and they have an epic feel. You'll see even more impressive missions in dungeons and "crisis zones" — one multi-part mission has you join a team of prison guards attempting to lock down a jailbreak led by a boss with paranormal powers. You fight through levels of the dungeon, struggling to reach him, and it almost feels like playing through a section of F.E.A.R.

The open world zones are few, but large, and they contain content for multiple ranges of levels. They're divided loosely into neighborhoods, which you'll typically explore until you've exhausted all the missions (gaining a couple levels in the process), and move on to a neighborhood in a different zone. The neighborhoods all tend to tell a story, or a few related stories, which tie in to the overarching plot of the game. There are a couple smallish content gaps — early into level 31, I exhausted all available quests and had to grind out the rest of the level — but Cryptic has already acknowledged that they're pinpointing those gaps and working to fill them. My advice would be to take any mission given to you by a random citizen or object; the experience from these adds up quickly, and I probably wouldn't have been stuck if I'd spent a bit more time doing those.

The zones would take a long time to traverse on foot, but early on you're given your choice of travel powers, which make getting from one place to another much faster. The travel powers are actually a lot of fun, in and of themselves. You can get your standard flying power, or ride a sheet of ice, or use rocket boots, but there are more entertaining options as well. You can get Superjump, which lets you literally leap tall buildings in a single bound, or Swing, which lets you shoot a grapple upwards and swing as if from vine to vine. Oftentimes you're just shooting it into the open air, so it doesn't make much sense, but that's more than made up by how fun it is.

One of the really good innovations in Champions is what they call the Powerhouse. This is where you go to buy new powers, increase your stats, and upgrade existing powers — the equivalent of a class trainer in other games. However, the Powerhouse is instanced, and it has a large testing area at the back. You can pick up your new powers, test them, and get rid of them if you don't like them. Changes aren't finalized until you leave the Powerhouse. It's great for trying out new things without worrying that they'll work poorly with your character. The game does have a re-specialization system, appropriately called "retcon," but at current it's ridiculously expensive. Recent power purchases aren't bad to change, but if you want to fix a mistake from early on (when you weren't that familiar with the game), it will likely cost you several times the wealth you've managed to accumulate.

Now, that's definitely a poor decision on Cryptic's part, but it's not as bad as it sounds. First, they've already held a post-launch dev chat, in which they said they're going to revise upward the amount of money you receive from monsters and quests. They also indicated that retcon costs would probably be lowered. What's more, they've already issued one free retcon to all characters, and said they'll likely do that whenever they make significant changes to powers in a patch. One phrase they used was "targeted retcon," which would let players freely change a power that has been modified. While I was initially displeased that I couldn't fix mistakes I made when I didn't know how the game worked, it's good to see that Cryptic is already addressing it, and on multiple fronts. That speaks well toward the long-term health of the game.

An important aspect of the game starts at level 25 when you get to create your Nemesis. This is a super villain whose plans you constantly try to thwart, and who routinely sends his minions to destroy you. It's basically an epic series of missions that happens gradually as you level up. After you tangle with him for the first time, you'll occasionally be ambushed by his henchmen when you're off doing normal missions. Sometimes when you kill the henchmen, they'll drop notes that contain information about your Nemesis' plans, which you go on a mission to disrupt. Other times, the police or NPC superheroes will call on you to stop his latest scheme. It's nicely done, and it really adds to the feel that you're doing heroic deeds and fighting complex battles.

There is less focus on gear in Champions than in most other MMOs. You have nine gear slots, and your typical item will increase your stats and and your defenses. You generally want to focus on the two "Super Stats" you select early in the leveling process, since raising those increases your damage output. There are also items with other effects; some will replace or modify your powers, adding an ancillary effect and perhaps a new graphic. Equip-able items are categorized as Arms, Mysticism, and Science — these are the three professions. Each of them has crafting and gathering aspects. Unlike most MMOs, your profession skill doesn't increase much by making things or harvesting nodes out in the wilderness. Instead, you take items you find and "research" them, breaking them down into their components. This is cool because it gives you a ton of materials to work with, and makes it easy to catch up to where your skill level is supposed to be. You don't have to make two dozen Shoulderpads of the Useless that you immediately vendor. There is virtually no "grind" to the process, which is quite nice, and you can build yourself some basic gear and useful consumables.

There's still work to be done on the game, as with any MMO launch. Pet AI isn't working right, so summoned creatures will frequently run off and attack whatever the heck they want. Several buggy missions have already been fixed, but others are still broken. PvP is dominated by a few annoying abilities; nothing you can't work around with a semi-coordinated team, but a lot of people can't rely on that. There are a few places in the game that look like they're just waiting to be populated with villains and quests; hopefully that'll happen soon to fill out the leveling process. The downside right now is that you'll frequently end up doing quests a couple levels higher than you, which give you rewards you can't use yet. Endgame doesn't have a ton of variety; that's something they'll have to address fairly soon, once a significant number of players reach the level cap.

As it stands, I think Champions Online's success will be determined by where Cryptic takes it from here. The launch is solid, there's a reasonable amount of content, and the combat is a fun break from typical MMOs. When Cryptic actively developed for City of Heroes, they released 10 expansions and City of Villains in a three-and-a-half year period. If they can roll out content on a similar scale for Champions, while staying on top of balance issues and bug fixes, it will certainly find success. As it is, it's piqued my interest. It's no WoW-killer, but it's a fun, distinct game that will carve out a niche for itself.

Comments

Re:FIST SPORT

[FTWinston]

I didn't particularly enjoy the tutorial, but once that's out of the way, things improved immensely.

Re:Quality vs Appeal

[thesandtiger]

The thing about "best" in this game is that it's incredibly subjective and depends so much on playstyle.

For instance, with a melee character, how "active" do you want to have to be in combat? Do you want to move around a lot to line up cone attacks? Do you like sitting in one spot and just AOEing people to death? Do you like to take out foes 1 at a time or all at once? With a ranged character it's similar - are you "ranged, but up close and personal" (meaning: fly in, throw down a minefield, have people die that way, or fight with an up-close gun-kata taken almost directly from Equilibrium?) or do you like to snipe?

I suppose there are some min/max builds out there that let you kill things most effectively, but the thing is that they really require one particular specific playstyle when using them to make them better; if you aren't into that playstyle, the build will be unfun to play, but effective, or not as effective but played the way you like to play.

On the flip-side, it is possible to completely screw yourself over if you pick powers that don't synergize well. If, for example, you are a primarily ranged character (force bolts or something) but you take a melee energy builder attack (the basic attack that powers up your other attacks) you will probably not have much fun because you have to zoom in to build energy, then run away to fight at range. Or, you might make a "glass cannon" build - all offense with no defense. In the first 10 levels or so, you probably won't notice a lack of a passive defensive power, but very quickly after that you'll slam into a brick wall where you are repeatedly killed because mobs scale up under the impression that you will be a bit more well rounded.

The retcon system fixes that, though it is rather expensive. Then again, given you can respec all the way back to level 0, it has to be expensive, because people would just get 1 character to maximum level and then respec to try out everything else easily, which may not be so good for the game's longevity. Personally, I think you should be able to respec your last 5 levels cheaply, but after that it should become incredibly expensive, and that's more or less how they have it now.

Re:FIST SPORT

[thesandtiger]

It's a tutorial. They need to teach you the basics of the game so that you don't wander around not knowing how to do anything. At least in this game they make it like there's something BIG happening - because you're a super hero already - rather than CoH or WoW's tutorial zones which were pretty much "Oh, hey, dude, great you're here - wanna pick up my drycleaning for me?"

In this tutorial, I:

1) Ran into a burning & invaded building the cops wouldn't to retrieve sensitive data, beating up aliens by ripping a streetlamp out of the ground to use as a weapon
2) Did a lot of "good deeds" - rescued civilians from under giant chunks of debris, rescued a cat for an old lady, fought off invaders to get medical supplies, and helped a tourist get his stuff back
3) Rescued 2 superheroes who had been captured or otherwise incapacitated
4) Fought off an enemy invasion and protected a primary defensive system until it was repaired & ready
5) Personally fought room by room through the Champions' HQ to launch the defenses, defeating a really big boss in the process

(and, of course, learned about the game mechanics)

Contrast that with WoW where I... Brought a hot drink to someone, beat up some boars for scraps, picked some flowers, and generally was treated like a child. Or City of Heroes where I... Beat up 5 people infected with a virus, and then beat up another 10 or so to get the formula for the cure, but really, I didn't need to, because the NPC I rescued seemed more than capable of doing that.

In all those tutorials you learn to play the game, so the only distinguishing things are the game mechanics themselves and the story behind them.

Re:My own review

[TikiTDO]

I think a lot of your issues are a matter of how you build your characters. As a crazy weak glass cannon I find myself blocking more often than not, especially since it also happens to be a good way for me to build up energy. Also, even at level 20, my rotation involves at least 3 abilities, and up to 5 depending on the situation. This is only likely to grow as I get new skills.

Perhaps you should try tweaking your build, or even doing a full retcon if you still have it available. From what I read, you might enjoy the game a lot more if you play it differently.

I'm completely with you on the stats though. They really turned out to be a giant pain.

Re:My own review

[vjmurphy]

To me, the game feels like City of Heroes 1.5: not a big change, really.

The costume choices for male characters seems much more expansive than those for female characters, unlike City of Heroes, which seems to have similar numbers of costumes for both sexes.

In City of Heroes, ranged attackers were usually balanced by having less defense/hitpoints. They could hit from afar, but depended on others for protection. In Champions Online, I've got a ranged character who is much better in a fight than an unarmed Martial Artist type. It's the equivalent of having Batman being outdone by Halo: it just isn't right. :)

"expectations...MMO should contain" Really?

[Snotman]

I would never hire this guy. The industry is barely a decade old and according to this guy there are paradigms that have been established that hold forever. Apparently, this guy has not heard of creativity and innovation. Why is there something rather than nothing? Those that know the answer are the ones that will create new paradigms. Too bad some people can't see farther than their nose and make so bold and naive claims.

The entire review is BS

[SmallFurryCreature]

Read it carefully, remembering things that were said in previous paragraphs and it quickly becomes clear that the reviewer WANTS to be positive. A deadly sin, a reviewer should always be neutral.

Easily fixable bugs are okay? If they are easy to fix, then why haven't they been fixed?

He has to grind between content and as you say, there is a reasonable amount of content? Didn't the reviewer say at the beginning that this ain't the dark ages anymore, MMO's have been around for a long time and dev's should know better now.

CO is Yet Another MMO that doesn't innovate as much as try to chase the twitch/PvP crowd, or worse the console crowd. Others have complained about how simple the game is to play, almost as if designed for a gamepad. No kidding, the game is going to the 360.

As I like MMO's a lot I have spend a lot of time thinking about MMO's and frankly, I think the drive for both twitch and PvP are hopelessly flawed for an MMORPG.

Why? The proof is in other games.

There are TWO games we play often and more importantly for LONG times, long past their graphical lifetime.

The first are the multiplayer FPS. I have long since grown past it, but you didn't play Quake for the pretty graphics, you played it for the instant hard action. But these games all have one thing in common. You are equal. Think about it, everything about multiplayer FPS games, tries to balance the players to extreme, often by simply making them exactly the same, or by playing both sides of the battle in turns.

Why is the RTS Starcraft so loved? Because the sides are superbly balanced.

But this goes against the heart of a (western) RPG, to build your own character, different from others. In a game like Neverwinter Nights, you get to choose from several classes and it is very clear that not all are equal in combat. Dungeon and Dragons Online even warns for this. Some classes are harder to play then others. How do you balance completly different classes with totally different roles? You can't.

This is like starting a game of counterstrike, and one side is given pistols and the other machine guns. Ouch! But an MMO never forces you to switch side and the session never ends. In multiplayer FPS/RTS any advantage you do take, ends at the end of the session.

There are however other games we play for long times, but these games tend to be more about strategy, development. Slow process where we carefully plan our actions. Wether that is an empire building game or the sims or a strategy or a (civilian) flightsimulator, in these games we have a set of skills/capabilities and the game is to learn them and how to use them best. Wether that is sorting our what sims need to do what to get all the stuff done and still advance, or plot the course of an aircraft, or direct a battle doesn't matter. These games are NOT about twitch, they are about tactics, stategy and thinking.

WoW and EQ and all similar games are like this. You have a character, you learn its skills and then you use these skills. It ain't about twisting and turning but using the right skills at the right time. Twitch is NOT what is needed here, it only distracts.

The proof is in Champions Online "block" skills. As another poster has explained, it has nothing to do with blocking, let alone predicting when an enemy has to be blocked. A meter is displayed, when it is full you should have pressed a button or you take a massive amount of damage. Bugs (mentioned in the review) or design mean your actual skills are interrupted while this is going on. Gone all your plans, all your tactics. And it goes on constantly. The combat quickly ends up as nothing more then pressing your cheap attack, power attack when you got power and BLOCK whenever the light comes on.

But isn't that fine for dozens if not hundreds of console action games? Yes, but those games ain't player for hundred of hours. Action games come and go very quickly.

MMO's shouldn't. They are very expensive to develop so a publisher needs the kind of a

Re:My own review

[Darinbob]

I never got past level 20 in City of Heroes (and that was on the villain side). Already I see things in Champions Online that fix the problems I saw in CoH, without getting rid of most of the good stuff. Ie, none of those stupid randomized missions that all turn out to be exactly the same. I can go back and do old quests that are below my level (so far) without having the game force me to the next harder zone. The quests feel much more story based, rather than running back to some newspaper reporter to get a scoop for the next mission (or at least the quests rise to the level of comic books, don't expect LotRO).

Though it is a lot more gear oriented than CoH, which isn't great. A really good superhero game (and one based on the pen-and-paper Champions) should allow you to get by without gear. This just seems to be one of those MMO memes that are hard to dispense with. They do have a concept of switching roles/builds on the fly; ie, defender role gives you more health/threat but less damage output, or you can be an avenger offensive role, etc. I'd hate to keep gear for more than one role so just changing stance is fine with me, but there's more opportunity for gear collectors here.

There are too many stats I feel; great for the person who loves crunching numbers, but overwhelming at times. Plus some stats are just more important; there's already the simplistic view around that bumping up CON (for hit points) is the most important thing to do, which feels wrong to me (but so like all the other MMOs). I'd rather have the option of spending the same points on damage mitigation for the same effect. Ie, for being good at critical hits, you need to spend points on two stats (one for chance to crit, one for magnitude). For my might based "tank", having my primary stats be STR and CON works out great, they both complement my powers and overall survivability; for my energy nuker, having primary stats of END/REC as a glass cannon works well. But for my magic based guy, the primary stats of INT/PRE both feel like sub-standard stats. Be nice if the usefulness of stats were better balanced, and you weren't penalized for having a concept build.

The costume creator is nice, but I'm missing some stuff from CoH it seems, ie I can't quite go with a zombie face like CoV had, it just looks wrong. I like having the save/restore in the creator which is handy. Would be nice to have an offline version (if the servers go down, you can't use the costume creator). I like the beast options, but they have very little customization (one feline head only, one simian head, one vulture head, but for some reason 2 shark heads and 3 snake ones :-). And pieces of costumes seem to be missing; I can get a full suit of medieval armor and make it look really nice, but there's no helmet to go with it; I've got all the samurai accessories, except for the base samurai armor. CoH had some of the same problems though. Be nice to link different pieces of armor together more easily (ie, if I select a certain chest piece then let it automatically pick the right leg pieces that match); and I find myself scrolling through long lists too often since it doesn't remember where I was last time. I find myself spending hours at this, which is good for all the options, but it's also bad since much of that is time wasted on the UI. And just like CoH, most of the players in the game seemingly just hit the random button. :-)

I suspect CO will feel just like CoH in an important sense - you have a blast for a month, then put it away for 3 months, then come back for one month again, and repeat.

Re:FIST SPORT

[thesandtiger]

Most of the things you describe can be reached through the options menu in game (hit escape until a menu pops up, just like in WoW). I agree some of them are poorly labeled - but keybindings is it's own tabular section in the options pane.

Here is something for some of your problems:

1) Tooltips can be set to appear instantly. They are, initially, set to a 1 second delay. There's an option - I think under interface - for "tool tip display delay" or something like that. I set mine to zero, and the tips pop up right away. Found it by mucking around with the interface.

2) There may be a way to have it automatically change targets to the guy hitting you in melee when you were shooting someone else, but this behavior in CO is exactly the same as the behavior in WoW. If you have a ranged mob targeting you and you hit a melee distance attack, it'll say out of range, so you'd have to handle it how you handled that situation in WoW. There are some control options that you can change around, but they take a bit of fiddling. I completely redid my controls to be more like a shooter, and I use a 360 gamepad with it and it's very easy to do.

3) UI and camera lag: I keep on hearing about this from people, but I don't experience it. My system isn't all that high end (2.8gz Wolfsdale, nVidia 260 card, 2mb ram, xp sp3) so I don't know if it's the specs or the OS or what - I just haven't had a problem with the camera not turning quick enough or anything like that.

4) The loading screen - was it patching? You may have been verifying files or something. It shouldn't take that long in future if it's patches, but then, maybe it will - you might have a lot of cruft on your system and are experiencing choked memory, perhaps?

Generally, the performance has been improving steadily with patches. I haven't had any negative issues with the performance - it was good enough for me at launch, but it's gotten a lot smoother since, which is gravy.

Graphically, at reasonably low settings, yes, it looks about as good as WoW. I have it running at nearly maximum settings and it looks phenomenal to me - MUCH better than WoW does in pretty much every way. If you can swing it, check out the 260 - it's a decent performer at a pretty reasonable price. I think a lot of the things you experienced in the tutorial might have been things you could change - boost the alpha (the rooms weren't dark for me, though somewhat shadowy, given that many of the lights had been shot out) and I'm also using the better lighting options, so maybe that changes a lot. I get around 30-40fps steadily, regardless of where I am.

On my roomie's machine, she runs it like a slide-show, though she's got 2gb vista, I think an 8800gt or possibly a 6800gt - it looks about as "good" as city of heroes on her computer, and she's getting 15 or so FPS. She says she's about due to get a new machine (or upgrade various components), and for less than $500 she's going to have a system a bit better than mine when she's done.

Good luck, and hope your performance issues get resolved, or that you at least have fun :)