**PLEASE NOTE: This review was for The Secret World and not for Secret World Legends, it will be updated soonish to reflect revised update**

I will admit. I was very surprised by this MMO and originally did not think I'd ever play it. Thanks to a Steam flash sale, I purchased the massive edition (with a few extras thrown in and some of the expansions.. called Issues, btw) for my brother and myself and tried it out. It's fascinating and unique. Edgy voiceover dialogue and discussions, pretty involved quest/story lines, class-less/level-less system, nicely rendered atmospheric environments all in a modern/urban setting. Funcom did well with this so far. There's a slight learning curve and might not be the easiest or the best game to start with for an MMO newcomer. For newcomers or vets alike, stick with it. The community seemed mature, decent and helpful (at least on the server we chose). And we saw our fair share of players running around in the starting areas, the travel nexus (called Agartha), and the first mission zone we were travelling in. There were default notifications about activity in the PVP territories too, so it seems like the game (at least on our server pick) has a decent amount of traffic and population.

Graphics (8-9) - DX9/11 support, FXAA, tesselation, good graphics options for the workhorses and the slow ponies. Some character models are nice looking and some are just ugly (like SOME of the NPC's.. good lord, comb that hair)

Fun (9) - Puzzles, engrossing questlines, decently fleshed out NPC's, class-less/level-less, fashion options.. wide variety of playstyles supported

Sound (8-9) - Fully voiced NPC dialogue/cutscenes, Random NPC voice chatter, good atmospheric mood background music, appropriate sound effects, nothing fancy tho

Community (8-9) - Decent population sampling for areas we've explored, specific chat channels set up for things like "Mission Hints", etc. and rather helpful, mature, decent chatter in the channels

Performance (8) - I have settings turned up to Ultra on my semi-beast of a machine. I got the occassional lag in some areas, that I haven't quite isolated as graphics lag or connection lag. I'm leaning towards graphics lag due to the area I was in

Value (8-9) - B2P (pay for the game, don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee). There's optional membership sub for added bonuses, there's an item shop you can buy things with cash (mainly cosmetic fluff and some value-added consumables), I got massive edition for a steal on a flash sale during the summer sale 2014, but overall the pricing is good with all that's included compared to other MMOs

Service (8) - The account management site is a little outdated and piggybacks off the old AO account management look and feel.. not very informative or user friendly and can be confusing at times. But you don't spend alot of time in there so I won't penalize the score too much.

VERDICT: So.. to sum it up, I'd give this a 8-9 out of 10

**PLEASE NOTE: This review was for The Secret World and not for Secret World Legends, it will be updated soonish to reflect revised update** I will admit. I was very surprised by this MMO and originally did not think I'd ever play it. Thanks to a Steam flash sale, I purchased the massive edition (with a few extras thrown in and some of the expansions.. called Issues, btw) for my brother and myself and tried it out. It's fascinating and unique. Edgy voiceover dialogue and discussions, pretty involved quest/story lines, class-less/level-less system, nicely rendered atmospheric environments all in a modern/urban setting. Funcom did well with this so far. There's a slight learning curve and might not be the easiest or the best game to start with for an MMO newcomer. For newcomers or vets alike, stick with it. The community seemed mature, decent and helpful (at least on the server we chose). And we saw our fair share of players running around in the starting areas, the travel nexus (called Agartha), and the first mission zone we were travelling in. There were default notifications about activity in the PVP territories too, so it seems like the game (at least on our server pick) has a decent amount of traffic and population. Graphics (8-9) - DX9/11 support, FXAA, tesselation, good graphics options for the workhorses and the slow ponies. Some character models are nice looking and some are just ugly (like SOME of the NPC's.. good lord, comb that hair) Fun (9) - Puzzles, engrossing questlines, decently fleshed out NPC's, class-less/level-less, fashion options.. wide variety of playstyles supported Sound (8-9) - Fully voiced NPC dialogue/cutscenes, Random NPC voice chatter, good atmospheric mood background music, appropriate sound effects, nothing fancy tho Community (8-9) - Decent population sampling for areas we've explored, specific chat channels set up for things like "Mission Hints", etc. and rather helpful, mature, decent chatter in the channels Performance (8) - I have settings turned up to Ultra on my semi-beast of a machine. I got the occassional lag in some areas, that I haven't quite isolated as graphics lag or connection lag. I'm leaning towards graphics lag due to the area I was in Value (8-9) - B2P (pay for the game, don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee). There's optional membership sub for added bonuses, there's an item shop you can buy things with cash (mainly cosmetic fluff and some value-added consumables), I got massive edition for a steal on a flash sale during the summer sale 2014, but overall the pricing is good with all that's included compared to other MMOs Service (8) - The account management site is a little outdated and piggybacks off the old AO account management look and feel.. not very informative or user friendly and can be confusing at times. But you don't spend alot of time in there so I won't penalize the score too much. VERDICT: So.. to sum it up, I'd give this a 8-9 out of 10