What's most interesting about the game however (and annoying to me) is the lack of a death penalty. Sure, nobody likes dying due to lag or some other cheap problem and suffering a huge experience or inventory loss because of it, but at the same time I rapidly lost any compulsion I had to lend assistance to my fellow Captains or even care what they were doing, simply because I knew if they died they'd be back on their feet within a few seconds, none the wiser. I understand Cryptic Studios has a tough balancing act to play between avoiding alienation of their fanbase and maintaining a constant challenge, but here I felt this was the wrong decision to make - especially because it's very easy to get yourself into an overpowered state in the game.

I don't dislike the concept of Star Trek Online – it actually has kept me interested for a solid number of weeks (and still going - the nutty adventures of Fred, Dr. Nebulous, Brains, and Bob will continue on for some time). What I do dislike is how much better it can be—or should have been upon release. If they make the away team missions more interesting, lump in some more of those creative, plot-driven quests, fix some of the errant bugs and gameplay problems (I haven't even gone into how often the servers are either down for maintenance, or down because they're simply broken), and give the bridge view an actual purpose, this game has the potential to be a real hit. Until then, I'm still going to say this game is definitely worth a look - just be aware of what you're getting into before forking over the extra cash for the nigh-indefinite-length subscription options they offer.