City of Villains attempts to rectify the lack of long term appeal through the introduction of base building, scrap recovery (for base building), and player versus player aspects. This may not be enough for many players. I've noticed that some players (myself included) find themselves repelled by the mid-level grind and instead are in a cycle of simply starting over new Villains in order to play with new powers and appearances. If this tendency to start over is a problem, Cryptic has not been quick to recognize it.

In the end, considering the massively multiplayer "hook" aspect is fairly weak, City of Villains is a fabulous game but it's only an okay MMORPG.