We'll skip straight past any sort of dubious justification for why I've spent almost 90 per cent of my time in City Of Villains running around as a mini-skirt and suspender beltwearing young lady with a gravity-defying décolletage and a preponderance for performing high kicks at any given opportunity. Suffice to say that's one more item to cross off my Things To Do Before I Die list. Instead, we'll move straight on to a brief explanation of what City Of Villains is: City Of Heroes. A-hah-hah-ha ha ha ha aaaah... No, but seriously folks.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

The first impression when starting life in the Rogue Isles is that this feels like little more than an expansion pack for the game's longserving hero-based brother. Same charactercreation system, same controls, same game mechanics. A couple of hours later, with your first character already nudging the lower end of levels seven or eight and a linear, plotted series of missions under your belt, and the differences between the two games finally start to reveal themselves.

For one, COV seems a much more structured an affair than its free-flowing heroic brother. This is both good and bad. Good in that you're given much more guidance on what to do with your virtual life of crime, with clearly signposted milestones along the way. Bad in that there's almost no variety on offer for players, with everyone's experience being the same every time you play.