I dunno why I haven't already commented on this...
I have mixed feelings about STO. As a hard-core Star Trek fan I absolutely love that it is so full of Star Trek lore and history that every new mission makes me wonder if I might see one of my old favorite characters. I just about lost my mind when I was confronted by an adult Naomi Wildman, who was a child on Voyager. I've also run into a few other series characters as well, and I've heard there are many more I have yet to meet. There's also a cool meeting place called the "Captain's Table" that is reserved for lifetime members (guilty...) where time doesn't exist. I actually saw Janeway once (and she's dead in this universe). It's pretty awesome.
It also very nicely ties in the new movie with the "prime reality" that continues in the game.
- Spoiler:
It begins with narration by Leonard Nimoy explaining how he went back into the past to prevent the destruction of Romulus, but, as he explains it, time continues to march on in the original reality. So in the game, Romulus has been destroyed, but Vulcan is still intact. This makes me a happy camper because I love Vulcans and almost swore off Star Trek altogether when the planet was destroyed.
One thing that bothers me is that it has a lot of repetitive questing like most MMOs do. There are A LOT of space battles, which are cool at first, but become so repetitive and boring that I've begun filtering out missions that I know will be heavy on the space battles. Now, every time I approach a planet I hope I'm going to be thrown into a ground battle. Ground battles are harder, IMHO, but they're much more fun. They're also not nearly as common as the space battles, though.
The gameplay is pretty intuitive. It's very customizable. You can program function keys to your heart's content. I actually programmed a key so that I could walk. The default is a jog, but I'm a big roleplaying nerd and wanted to walk through the space stations. Thanks to a quick trip to the forums (which are, of course, filled with ranty geeks), I was able to program a key to do just that.
Lastly, the graphics are beautiful. Now, when I started playing the game, I was playing on a gaming PC with a 47" LED TV. I pumped the graphics up, and they were STUNNING. I'm not just saying stunning for an MMO, they are comparable to any console game. Luckily, if you drop all of the graphics settings, you can still play the game on a crappy system like my laptop, which is all I have now.
So, my thoughts are that, while the game can get a bit repetitive, it is a hell of a lot of fun if you're really into Star Trek. If you're not, you might not like it as much. A lot of the fun comes from knowing the Star Trek universe. I love it, but I've also been away from the game for a few months and I really haven't missed it. So, I guess you could say it's not a "must have", but it's still great fun.