I'm an avid fan of H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, zombies, and all things that go bump, and I was immediately drawn to The Secret World because of the obvious influence the horror genre has had on its sensibilities. I'd never played any MMORG's before TSW but that didn't hinder me from immediately becoming immersed into its elaborate world.
The game proper begins in Kingsmouth, Maine, an isolated community on Solomon Island (although one can travel to any map from here provided they know the way). Once idyllic, this Arkham inspired New England town is now overrun by zombies, sea monsters, and cosmic horrors. The few remaining holdouts provide the lion's share of the quests available on the island, though there are plenty scattered throughout. The individual quest lines conjoin to build an encompassing island narrative of what went wrong in their community, and there is so much that did. Solomon Island is a haunted, insane place, and I've greatly enjoyed uncovering its' secrets.
The strong emphasis on story telling and NPC personality really shines in TSW and the voice acting is always top notch. One of my favorites is Hayden Montag, played by Jeffery Combs, who you may recognize for portraying Herbert West in the cult horror film series Re-Animator (Re-Animator was based on H.P. Lovecraft's famous novel). Many of the characters are very aware of common horror tropes, and will casually refer to them in a very self aware, wink to the audience, breaking the fourth wall kind of way that I find incredibly endearing. This is one game where I really pay attention to what every character has to say; every single idiosyncratic word.
I am also very pleased by how much TSW plays like a dedicated adventure / survival horror PC game. There are the riddles, puzzles, and the exploration familiar to adventure gamers and they are all intelligently designed and well presented, many of them requiring research, for example, into Latin, Morse code, Medieval history, even musical composition. If you take the time to figure out things on your own, you can actually learn a lot!
Having never really played any on-line cooperative games before, I really wanted more of a solo gaming experience going at my own pace, instead of a group one just running around from one checkpoint to the next, but with the option of testing the waters of team play once I had some time under my belt to become familiar with the gameplay. So far I have been able to do exactly that. None of the initial missions are too difficult to be done alone, and once most quests for one map are completed my character was well developed enough to go on alone to the next map. There are missions that are impossible to be done single-handed, but nothing that would hinder the player from progressing from area to area and going back later with a group for the rest. And missions that were first done in a group can always be replayed solo - after a cooling off period - if you are so inclined.
The Secret World is huge. At the time of this review there are maps in Maine, New York City, Seoul, Transylvania, Egypt, London, one in Tokyo being released soon, and more, with many locations having multiple maps themselves. They are constantly expanding their universe and it is safe to say there is enough content to last for months or years. I've played for about 60 hours so far and I haven't even made it out of New England yet!
The game does have its annoyances, but most, if not all, can be resolved throughout the learning curve. Read the stickies in the Newcomer forum on The Secret World message board as they can cut that curve in half. http://forums.thesecretworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6 My only major complaint about the gameplay is that when sticking to the same weapons, which you must do in order to level them up, the fighting can get very repetitive.
I have thoroughly enjoyed The Secret World. It's fun, imaginative, ambitious and unpredictable. Now that it's gone free to play (no monthly subscription) I highly recommend it to anyone who loves adventure games, horror stories, or role playing. In The Secret World, death is just the beginning. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.