WARNING!! – it will take no less than 7–8 hours to get this game set up.

If you are running Vista make sure that when you have to download the Vista compatible version of PlayOnline (required to play the game) that you download it from the US site and not the EU site as the EU version won't accept your registration numbers.

To be honest, this is one of the poorest setups I've ever come across. The whole PlayOnline launcher is a horrible looking thing that takes ages to load, it takes nearly an hour just to update it, and technical support is pathetic. Then after you've managed to fill in the registration forms the game will need to be updated. Again this has to be done through the PlayOnline launcher and that took over 3 hours to download and install.

To give you an idea as to what else could be done in that time – I installed and updated Neverwinter Nights 2 – downloaded, installed, played then uninstalled the Jericho demo – watched the latest episode of Heroes and Eureka and still had time to kick a ball around with my dog half a dozen times.

The game is nothing special and I really can't see myself actually paying to play it any longer than the free trial period.

The sad thing is, it could actually be a really great gaming experience but its just such a mess that you really have to dig deep to find reasons to like it. I'd rather shove a dull piece of wood through my skull than go through that whole process again.