Talking to my friends who still play, and reading lots of coverage, I get the impression one of the main reasons for the initial negativity is the amount of people playing solo through the story on their way to 20. And I use the term "story" very loosely (another reason for the complaints). This game is, IMO and that of people I play with, not very much fun solo. This game is also an online-only game that has no in-game matchmaking for the story missions, and therefore most people (again, anecdotally) played the story solo. That is not a good combination if the idea is to give people a fun game to play. I don't think the generic mission designs of the story missions helped, or the sameness of them (Earth mission x 5, then Moon mission x 5, then Venus mission x 5, then Mars mission x 5 - with 2 trips to the Reef in there near the end) helped at all. But once you get to 20 and are doing lots of different things [b]with other people[/b] the game gets fun. The game just gives you terrible tools to hook up with other people.