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We'll start out with the simplest criticism of all. Star Trek Online lacks a certain quality that all games require in order to be considered a game, that is, a form of entertainment; a thing people do in their leisure time that makes them happy, or excited, or otherwise stimulates their boring, predictable, possibly miserable lives. This lacking quality is called "fun", and it makes Star Trek online a boring, predictable, definitely miserable game. I don't like saying this about a title, but at the time of my review (who knows, maybe they released some kind of miracle content patch in the last few months) STO was a sluggish, absolutely mind-numbing experience that made me literally upset. It is, in short, hot garbage.

Over the course of the three day trial, which you only have access to if you have a friend who owns the game and is willing to lend a buddy key, you might find that you may not even have the patience to make it to level ten, which I hear is when the next ship is acquired. I tried, so hard, for over eight hours of dull space combat that was actually mechanically two-dimensional (rather than three-dimensional like some other tactical spaceship game), and extremely frustrating, buggy ground-combat, to get to like the game. Gameplay feels fun for the first 10 minutes, but feels repetitive after that. I tried very, very hard to like STO, and the reason for that is something I'll get into later. After hours of torture, of boring missions and repetitive gameplay, I had to quit. I couldn't even get to level ten to get a new ship. That's right! The player receives no real sense of meaningful progression in the game until many hours of gameplay. Awesome design. Sure, I leveled up, to about seven or so, but all I got out of that was some weird skills I didn't even seem to be able to make much use of, and a new outfit I found. Sweet.