I started playing CoH about a week after it came out. After about 15 months, when there was huge drama among my sg and all of my friends, I ended up checking out WoW and stayed there for about 10 months. But I missed my character Atomic Annie on Champion. I actually had a dream I was playing her, flying through Atlas Park. That had me back in CoH less than a week later. I have not looked back. This game has changed so much since it was released. Yes some of the changes hurt at first. I was upset at the proposed change to controllers way back around issue 3 or 4 and that had something to do with why I took a break. But after 10 months of grinding to get gear so I could get into the next raid, to grind for gear for the next big raid...all with little individuality of my characters from every other character out there...and no story behind the instances (missions) waiting until level 40 to get a mount(travel power...by the way I just got my 5 year vet badges and I love flying at level 6) no way for players of different levels to team up... no way to communicate with people across servers....
I could go on and on. We may not have the biggest population but we have the BEST game. I have talked to people who have played EVERY mmo and no other game gives as much to its players as this game. Issue 16 in my humble opinion was fantastic. The super sidekicking is great. No more do we have to find a mentor for every lowbie on the team. now I can make my atomic powers look radically different from "Atomic Thunder Girl" or whomever. Plus we keep getting more and more costume pieces to customize our characters.
Someone mentioned costume contests. One of my favorite characters, who is on my second account participated in the PERC costume contest. Austral Tempest won Miss Rogue Islands on the Champion server, for her Brazilian flag themed costume. Try making a look like that in any other game. Ya, the costuming is a big deal to me, but Im an artist. WoW could never HOLD a costume contest. I have heard they did add some costume items but CoX has a jump on that.
All whining about changes aside (I admit I have whined too) this is the best game out there. Oh, by the way, Popular Science magazine mentioned CoX in a mini article, and had some nice things to say about it.
