Champions Online

To be completely blunt, Champions Online is, for all intents and purposes, "City of Heroes 2." It's far easier to mention those occasions where it departs from its predecessor than to enumerate the ways in which it's similar. And that's just fine with me, really -- I love that game. In fact, I'm still subscribed. (Note to self: Need to cancel City of Heroes subscription. At least for a while.) With a half-decade advantage in graphics technology, Champions is obviously a lot prettier than its predecessor, and makes some really classy use of cel shading. It's been a while since I've seen that employed for anything beyond covering up half-assed low-poly models, but here it's both appropriate and really attractive. Champions also implements a whole slew of things that were impossible in CoH, from power color and animation customization, to the ability to choose superpowers from any pool without being strictly confined a class or archetype.

The idea behind Champions Online is to offer even more appearance customization options while completely opening up the hero powers with just as many options, from the origins of your powers to "talents" to character-based advantages that should all hopefully make your character a dynamo when push comes to shove.