Last night, after some solo work up to level 7 and far too many trips to the hospital, I grouped up with three friends. Caly sidekicked me, bringing my effective fighting skill from 7 to 12, and they all offered me some of their less powerful enhancements (which were all more powerful than the ones I'd been using). Then we tromped into Perez Park and beat down some nasty swamp slime beasties. After that was done, we found some trollkin and smacked them down as well. It was a good night.

As an MMORPG, CoH is fairly one-dimensional. Which isn't to say this is a bad thing. It is something that needs to be kept in mind, though. You can't go in expecting to craft or be a merchant or even deal with political machinations. It's nearly all about the fighting (though there is the fun of exploration and, of course, role-playing as well).