Joshua Kronengold

Hmm. Yeah, good, point; I mean, character creation is actually fairly easy (only really annoying thing is buying equipment, and thats not a problem if you're starting at 1st level); you can optimize, but the directions are straightforward enough (defense, improve a feature, to hit, damage, weapon, skillstuff, mostly).

But play (or rather, combat--other play is pretty straightforward/normal)? It's fun, but its fun in a cinematic figures wargame way. You can certainly do crazy things with improvised abilities, but a lot of the combat game involves manipulation of the space -- optimizing your movement, pushing bad guys into clusters so they can get zapped as a group, or pulling an enemy soldier out from the thick of things so your friends can move around more freely. I could see playing the game without a battlemap (where you're using the -conceptual- forced movement abilities rather than the physical ones), but if the concept of everyone playing a bit like a 6th level ranger doesn't appeal to you, what's the point?