Gamespot reviewed Hellgate: London last Friday and I found it to be a dead-on summary of the game as it exists right now.
Basically, Flagship has three issues it needs to address at the moment:
1. Stability
2. Tilesets
3. Subscriber hook
Ever since I fine-tuned my video options, the game has only crashed on me once. Clearly, HG: L is a system resource hog and either hardware needs to catch up to it or the game needs to be more efficient. But the forum boards are full of people complaining about game-stopping crashes and video lag. FFS has to fix this fast as the patience level of today's gamer mirrors that of my three year old daughter and many won't wait around for weeks for these kinds of issues to be fixed. I'm averaging around 25 fps in DX10, but I've got most of the options turned off. So improving the graphic performance of the game should be a top priority for the development team.
The game environments are too repetitive. Perhaps FFS has horded tilesets and intends to steadily stream them out for their subscribers. But many players, myself included, perceive that the game is shorter than it really is because there are basically four environments you play in throughout all the acts. I'd like to see more unique levels, like the Mind of 314 or the Museum to help break up the ubiquitous town, subway tunnel and bunker levels that otherwise make up the rest of the game. I know the game has "London" in the title, but when you're battling demon spawn from hell gates, the sky's the limit for imaginative levels. In other words, it's fine the game starts in London, but there's no reason to be anchored there the whole time.
Finally, FFS has got to make subscribing a worthwhile venture. Right now, subscribers get an extra player slot, a bigger bank, and the ability to play in hardcore and nightmare mode. Many critics are quick to point out that those are features that easily could have been included as part of the base game. So unless FFS starts streaming actual content, I see people not subscribing at the very least, perhaps leaving the game entirely. HG: L doesn't even come close to offering the amount of content games like WoW or EQ2 do, so they are going to be under extreme pressure to rationalize their current pricing scheme. I sure hope they've got some good stuff waiting in the wings.
And I'd like to see them add a shared bank or mail option into the game. My Blademistress finds tons of loot he can't use, but since there's no auction house or method for sharing with alts, I end up stripping most of it down for parts.
If they can address these three things, I think the game has a chance of being successful. FFS has pissed a lot of people off though and if the company lingers in fixing the bugs and doesn't stream some worthwhile content, HG: L could find itself on the scrap pile of highly-anticipated-games-gone-bad.
