First of all, what you've heard about CoH's character customization options is true. There is a nearly bewildering array of possible costume options in place to satisfy your hero (or villain) concept. For the rest of this article, we'll focus on playing with a hero, just so we can provide some sort of an overview. One of the first choices you'll need to make is the type of hero you're going to make. There are five archetypes in the hero continuum, and they break down by play type: Scrapper, which is the strongest melée combatant, but has no ranged attacks; Tanker, nearly as strong a hand-to-hand fighter as the Scrapper, but far more resistant to attack; Defender, which acts as the game's best support unit, buffing friendly forces and weakening enemies; Blaster, the best ranged attack fighter, yet unable to take a lot of hits; and Controller, which, while the weakest in defense of all archetypes, possesses a suite of powers that enable the modification of enemies' behavior, making it a powerful opponent in battle.

After that, it's time to check out your class's powers. Each archetype comes with a particular set of abilities, and each one chosen has its own subset of further attributes. This can get fairly complex, so, just to gloss over a bit (and half the fun is in determining for yourself what you want your hero's abilities to be anyway), you'll choose a Primary Power Set with its associated subset of powers, and a Secondary Power Set; the powers in your Primary will be slightly stronger in effect than those in your Secondary. Later, you'll choose extra abilities from the Power Pool, which all heroes share, and gain Enhancements, which fill character slots, and modify your existing powers.

As to the character customization itself, it's almost ridiculous how many choices are on offer. There are choices within choices, where you'll choose a type of clothing, then further specifics within that clothing type, such as boots (thigh-high, knee-high, short, etc.). Nearly every piece can be colored distinctly, and even your character's skin can be modified to have different colors and textures to it. It's worth seeing for yourself, so I won't spend more time on it here.

So, the most important bit: how does it play?