You do gain experience as you play matches and the experience is persistent (there are rumors that levels could go as high as 50). More experience and achievements will allow players to unlock more weapons and extra clothing to further customize their hero character. You can also gain extra experience and "Valor Points" by purchasing them through the Battlefield Heroes store. While EA also plans to run ads on the game's official web site it's clear that it hopes players will purchase "Battlefunds" for experience points boosts and clothing items. (EA has told us the availability and prices of the various micro transactions are still in flux while the closed beta is being run; therefore we won't mention any prices that are currently in place as they can and likely will change before Battlefield Heroes officially launches).

So now that we have gotten past the character selection, what's the actual game like? The game itself downloads an applet from the game's web site which then launches you into a options menu before you launch into the game itself. Currently only Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are officially supported for playing the game. As we mentioned before, any veteran Battlefield player will feel right at home in a match. Your team tries to defeat the opposing team by either killing the enemy or by capturing certain points on the map. The more kills you get and the more captures you make decreases your team's ticket level until one team or the other reaches zero.

All of the matches we played were on a fairly large maps that support tanks, jeeps and one plane for each team. Tanks are heavily armed (naturally) but slow moving. Jeeps are unarmed but quick and can hold up to three people. The plane is . . . well, it's about as difficult to fly as other Battlefield air units. Vehicle physics are almost non-existent in Battlefield Heroes so don't expect much in that area.

With a 16-person limit for each game and relatively small outdoor maps, the pace is actually fairly quick compared to previous retail Battlefield games. Online lag was about as expected for this kind of game; we didn't notice anything that was appreciably bad about its performance. Graphically, it's clear that Battlefield Heroes is aiming for fairly low system requirements. There's little that's flashy about the game's visual effects aside from its cartoon art style. Character animations are fairly simple and effects like weapons fire and explosions are pretty bland.

Of course, Battlefield Heroes was designed specifically to be played on a wide variety of systems. It was also designed to be played in a browser for quick-and-easy matches rather than long drawn out campaigns. In that respect, DICE has accomplished what it set out to do with its design. It's quick to load, quick to play and enjoy and you can shut it off quickly if you sneak in some game time at work (not that we condone that sort of thing...).

Most of all, you don't have to pay anything to really enjoy the game. While you can purchase extra clothing (the Battlefield Heroes store can have items like pirate and ninja costumes for your heroes) and boost experience with real money it's safe to say that it's not at all necessary to put down any funds at all if you just want a quick online multiplayer match during lunch or before you head back to bed with the wife or husband.

At the moment the game is still technically in closed beta, although the development team has been sending out tens of thousands of beta invites. EA tells us they expect Battlefield Heroes to enter an open beta phase sometime this summer. At the moment, the game is already fun to play and we expect Digital Illusions to continue to add content and improvements to the game before the open beta begins.