City of Heroes: Issue 12 released

The latest free content update to NCsoft's superhero MMO, City of Heroes/City of Villains, is now live on all servers.

Issue 12: Midnight Hour presents a new storyline and zone, new villain character classes, a new Task Force mission, new powers for all classes, the option to buy character slots, revamps of existing content, and a host of user interface and option improvements. Hats off to NCsoft: that's a very impressive feature list for a free patch.

If any of this tempts you to try the game again - or indeed for the first time - we've teamed up with NCsoft to offer 2000 free 14-day trials of City of Heroes. Head over to the giveaway page to grab one.

Issue 12 introduces the Midnight Squad story arc: the Squad is a faction that asks heroes and villains to time-travel to the ancient Roman style zone of Cimerora. The two new villain classes are both 'epic archetypes': Arachnos Solider and Arachnos Widow.

The Hollows zone has been revamped, a Task Force mission - Time's Arrow - for level 35-50 players has been added, and every class gets a couple of new powers (one primary and one secondary, for the most part). Interface improvements are far too many to list, but include a player-rating option.

We can't pretend to know what half of this means, but we've hired someone who does to play it and report back, so look out for a City of Heroes re-review on Eurogamer MMO soon.

In the meantime, check out the official patch notes, and don't forget to sign up for a free trial.