I'll have my full, detailed initial STO review in a few days, once I've had a chance to really get into the second tier of content (and ships!), but I just wanted to at least check in and say "hi."

Still working through Tier 1. Cryptic says about 20 hours to get into T2 and while I haven't checked my /played (and I'm not sure STO has a /played command!), I think that'll be about right once I finally do hit T2. I'm taking my time though. Reading the quest text and such. There's a lot of hidden Star Trek lore gems in the quest texts - STO has no video cut scenes, so if you want story and lore, you have to read.

I'm really enjoying the space combat. There's definitely 2 categories of Captains in the game. You've got your "Arcade Pilots" who expect to just go in, point their guns at the baddies, and blow them up. Versus smaller enemies, that works. Larger ones, or multiple enemies, not so much. Then you've got the ones that understand naval combat a little more. They go in, maneuver for a good shot, choose the smaller and fast (more maneuverable) targets to take out first, and make sure the heavy guns don't get a broadside on them. It's really a different style of combat than most people have seen in an MMO before.

Ground combat is fun too. You've got your team of Bridge Officers to manage, and it can get pretty micro-managey at times - but it's still fun. You can let them "do their thing" and you'll usually win, but against large groups of enemies, or vs. certain types (Klingon Swordmasters and Targ Handlers in particular), you've got to micro-manage your Away Team and get them to focus fire. I was hoping that STO would end up being the "Ultimate Pet Class Game" and it really is! Your Bridge Officers are super-detailed "pets" that you can customize in nearly every way, and you've got a lot of them - and you get to have more as you grade/rank up.

That's all for now; huge long wall of text style review in a few days/next week-ish.