These additions add a lot to the MMO concept. Where RealTime Worlds goes wrong is in trying to strip away what they see as the “dull” aspects of the MMO genre. They've removed story, exploration, grouping, abilities, and leveling and in doing so, apb gold have also removed a hefty chunk of the fun. Beyond the intro movie which sets the game's historical context, APB has no story. Neither the setting nor the missions do anything to flesh out the fiction and so the context isn't particularly immersive. There's no reason to explore because everything takes place in one of three smallish urban districts: the Financial, Social or Waterfront, all of which are fairly similar in look and feel. There's no grouping in a meaningful sense; when you accept a mission you're immediately put on a team of like-factioned individuals and there's not much in the way of planning or cooperating. Everyone just dashes to the objective, shoots at one another, dies, respawns, and dashes to the objective again. Because of this, no matter what mission you're on, the game feels like one endless, disorganized Death Match.

As I said, character customization is pretty cool in APB but in the end, apb gold mostly cosmetic. Skill trees are nonexistent, and so the only upgrade to your abilities comes from the types of weapons you're allowed to carry. Leveling is replaced by the ideas of Prestige and Notoriety and the ultimate point of the game is not necessarily to become more powerful, but to become as famous (or as infamous) as you can. You gain Prestige by completing missions for faction NPCs and you gain Notoriety by committing crimes in front of witnesses. Paradoxically enough, public criminal action is actually a bad thing for a criminal, since more visibility means more Notoriety and more Notoriety means lower faction rewards.