So, currently writing this review after a whopping 500+ hours of gameplay. This game is both great and horrendous so I am just going to lay out some things I found to be important that may help peopel to decide to play or skip this title. This is my honest review and probably the msot down the middle you will see.

The Good
1. This game has a lot of potential. It could easily be expanded, improved, keep enough players happy as long as it is maintained properly and a good community.

2. It is different from anything I ever played before so it was a breath of fresh air.

3. You can play as any combination of several roles in the game: Spy, Mercenary, Hacker, Thief, Terrorist, Murderer, Military, Police, Economic, Crafting, RP, lone wolf, and probably several other ones I couldnt think of. There is potentially something for everyone.

4. Game uses a faction system. Its not perfect, but it does what its intended to do in the end. Factions are the equivilent of a guild or clan or w/e.

5. Content is mostly player based. This can be good and bad, but I find it interesting that people decide how the game is going to go instead of something that is pre-programmed or decided by developers (of course the devs are rolling out patches and new items that players can't really control, but as far as what is actually going on at any time, completely player made.)

6. Potential a lot of freedom to do what you want. It's a sandbox social experiement as I like to call it.

7. The "Galaxy" is interesting and fun to explore (although you WILL get lost at times.)

8. Factions can own pieces of the map called "territories.". You can set up turrets to protect it and so on to protect your holdings. When someone walks into your territory, your faction logo and name and says "we are insert name here and we own this!" It also gives you something to fight over and additional objectives.

The Bad
1. Population of the game has dropped drastically in this game for two reasons. Horrible community, stale gameplay (depends largely on the faction your in or community itself), and poor management. I will elaborate on these later on.

2. Stale combat. The combat system feels clunky. It is definitely old and could use some fine tuning. This is comming form a guy thats been an FPS player for over a decade. I've played crappy shooters, and this IMO is worse.

3. There were instances of GM abuse and favoritism, but this was brought to light and resolved. Thank you AoC, TNFF and a handfull of people from FDC.

4. There are three types of factions. Infiltration (hackers), Economic (crafters) and Military (fighters). Military by far has the best perks and so most factions are military which is kind of a shame. They should balance out the faction types fo infiltration and economic get more useful faction perks. Perks are bonouses your faction type gets.

5. Combat is 50% equipment, 30% "skill" and 20% your connection. If you dont have the gear you will have almost no chance. Of course this game tends to lag for many even which will ruin combat for them completely.

6. Politics in this game works like this. Your a female and you can wrap male faction members/leaders around your finger (yay lonely nerds on the net), you dump lots of money in the game on the cash shop to get rich and buy all the military factions (not hard to do because they do anything for cash), or you get a large enough faction to throw your weight around and occassionally hire merc factions to help you out. It isn't all that complex or intelligent, but whatever. Not necessairly a game breaker. I just found it disappointing, but life goes on.

7. Troll mentality is strong with this game. It attracts the "I want to go kill everyone" kind of people. That coupled with players that got bored of farming aliens or crafting to make monet that decide, I'm just going to commit mass murder and take people's stuff. So they kill the ecoers off and guess what. No items in stores anymore, real genious... Its very inbalanced and taht inbalance really throws a wrench into the game mechanics. Also, lets say a faction decides like you or your faction, they will just sit at all spawn points and continuously kill you or your faction untill you quit the game or disband or pay some rediculous ammount of money. I find this hilarious because the game lost most of its population and people do these things and make it worse. It litterally happens all the time. (Yay community.)

8. Almost no penalty for playing the bad guy. Normally there is a penalty for killing people or robbing players in a game, and this game has a system in place to deal with this. However, it is so bad people laugh at it. It is downright pointless to be honest. The penalty point system is a complete joke and so is the arrest system that rides on top of the penalty point system. Kill 20 people and spend 5 minutes in jail, leave, and do it again.

9. Unless you like politics (most people don't) or you just want to be a troll there isn't a lot to keep people's interest at the end of the day. Most of the gameplay and maps get stale after a while and you find yourself crafting or farming for hours to make money. Because of this, most players quit or give into the troll culture which has taken over the game and slowly destroying it. (I say destroying in terms of lower player population and it's affect on the rest of the other aspects of gameplay.)

10. Small factions can't really do much in the game. Unless you grow and get enough of the few regular players your faction won't go anywhere and just crash and burn after some troll faction KOSs you into submission. Also it is hard to recruit pepople. Most players don't log back in after the first few days and regular players are leaving every week.

My final thoughts.
This game is definitely unique to me. I like the potential it has and the idea. Unfortunately, poor management and a poor community simplified this into a run and kill everyone because you can 5th rate shooter. This has ruined it for others so they quit. Now, don't get me wrong. Not everyone in game is like that, but it's enough of a problem it makes the community shrink, and these players don't care. If you got thick skin and don't mind getting killed mercelesly, don't mind having ot struggle, loosing your gear and want to try your hand in creating a government, law, or just join the trolls go for it. It was worth playing for me. I personally don't hate the game and still play it, but it isn't for everyone and unless the community grows again I do not know long it will be around. If you got questions for me about my review or experience feel free to shoot me a message. At 500+ hours and after doing everything several times, its safe to say I know what I am talking about. This concludes my honest review and perhaps most accurat review you will see. I give it 7/10. It's free for now so why not give it a try, right?

While an interesting concept in theory, don't let it's ambitious description fool you into thinking it has miraculously broke the code on how to stray from your run-of-the-mill MMO. Although FoM has an admirable lack of annoying bugs that seem to plague all beta games, be ready to experience the usual frustrations: nigh Herculean task of figuring what to do as a new player without strong backing of a good faction, little content to entertain or distract from the temptation to make in-game money through less honest means, and the resulting glut of griefers camping at shopping/vortex areas. While there is a system in place to discourage murder, penalty points (PP) seem to do disappointingly little to deter bad behavior, and there are even fewer equipped to take on these so-called profitable bounties -- likely because of sheer numbers. The game is a pleasant distraction, but not worth investing much money in... it certainly is *not* the incredible RP experience as advertised where one can influence the world through their actions. The game seems to do just the opposite as an exercise in futility.\

PS: All you idiots who deserve an F in reading comprehension need to stop a second before commenting. I like this game because 1) I have a strong faction 2) I shrug off most of the juvenile harrassment on this game and 3) I have embraced the griefing culture. However, unless you have all these things, I still do NOT recommend this game for the average player. FoM is fun for me because the stars are practically in alignment in my case, but probably won't be for you. Haters to the left.

My advice is dont waste your time on FOM. Most of the decent players quit playing long ago due to bordem and no additions of content. I had 2 account that were paid premium, along with cash shop purchases to support the game.

The developers just relased a new patch where existing players that were playing the game now have to buy the game even if they already were paying to play as premium. Develpoers are greedy and instead of adding new content that would keep players enaged they just dream up ways to suck more cash out of the few players that are left.

Do yourself a favore and run away, far away from FOM

IMPORTANT EDIT: It would appear that the game is no longer free, though it seems that if you downloaded it via Steam while it was free it will still be in your library.

This game is fun. Pure and simple. It is not going to be for everyone, however. Most of the negative reviews I'm seeing are people who didn't actually take the time to look around, explore, or even find the simplest of things. I'm guessing most of these reviews are being generated by people who are used to their hand being held during their entire gaming experience. This is not the case with Face of Mankind. I'm hoping to address some of the most common complaints here.

NOTE: Since reading is hard for some people I'll add this in here a second time. These complaints are reworded complaints that I picked from other negative reviews. The only thing made up is the exact wording.

Common complaints found in negative reviews

Complaint 1: THERE'S NO ♥♥♥♥ING TUTORIAL!!!!11!1!ONE!1!

Answer 1: Yes. Yes there is. It's about a foot in front of you and to the left when you first spawn in. NPC, Orange name, black suit, blonde spikey hair. She will give you a quest that is the start of the tutorial.


Complaint 2: THE TUTORIAL DOESN'T TEACH YOU ANYTHING!

Answer 2: Yes, it actually does. You just have to read what the NPCs are telling you. You can't just hit 'accept' to everything and expect to learn how to play the game.


Complaint 3: THERE IS NOTHING TO DO AFTER THE TUTORIAL!

Answer 3: There is plenty to do. Explore the universe, go mining, go alien hunting, go attack random players in a PvP zone, join a faction, go shopping, etc.


Complaint 4: Why should I have to join a faction to have fun?

Answer 4: Good to see you're getting more reasonable, imaginary player. You really don't. While many players will recommend it as the 'only way to have fun in FoM', it's not strictly true. For many players, myself included, that really is the only way to have fun. I don't think I could play the game without a faction, but I've seen many people having fun playing it solo, just don't expect to take and hold territory by yourself.


Complaint 5: Why do I have to sit through a hour long class when joining a faction?

Answer 5: Some factions do this to weed out people who are just trolls or spies, or are just plain incompetant. The point of many of these classes is also to help teach new players the basics of the game, as well as the basic functions of the faction that they are about to join. If you don't like it, don't join the faction. That just means that the class is doing its job.


Complaint 6: Random people kill me for no reason!

Answer 6: Yes, and? If you don't like to run the risk of being killed sit in Brooklyn and twiddle your thumbs all day. Going outside of the safe zone means you are a potential target. Don't like it? Do something to change it. Join a faction, look intimidating, kill other people first, whatever you want.


Complaint 7: The game doesn't work/launch/let me login/etc.

Answer 7: Not too sure what to tell you. Try the usual fixes, such as restarting the game, steam, your computer, etc. Reinstall the game. Check google for other answers, and faililng that, contact support for help.


Even if reading this doesn't convince you, or you are on the fence, remember, the game is Free to Play. Download it and give it a try. Be forewarned, the first bit of the game can be confusing and rough. It's something you have to get into and be willing to put time into. Talk to people in game, make friends. Try joining a faction, you can always leave it later if you don't like it.

EDIT:

If anyone has any questions about the game, please feel free to post it below in the comments.

This game is something like the first Rocky movie in reverse: it used to be a serious contender, but now it is a washed up bum that keeps begging you for spare change to fuel its bad habits.

Up front, let me say that I am a legacy player; I played this game for years, prior to Fall of the Dominion. Some things about Fall of the Dominion are better, to be fair, but much is worse.

In its current version, this game is inaccessible to new players who want to participate in its fundamental method of change: combat. Veteran players already have their skills trained up (EVE style, another step backwards), as well as plenty of gear. This gear in question (injectors and medkits) effectively mean the combat is about tanking damage rather than doing it.

The game's current attraction, faction creation (after you paid them, up until this patch), is also broken in that the veterans own almost everything there is to own in terms of income-making services and territories. With it being nigh impossible for a new player to compete at all, it comes as no surprise that there aren't any; Brooklyn is bereft of life. The developers have sat idly by as the population died, before recently mentioning their product might get any better.

The Dominion is gone, yet no revising them out of the game was done; weapons still have the Dominion in their description (like the Zanathid), to give an example. It is as if the developers took $60,000 on Kickstarter to do the bare minimum of work on the actual game, at its core. Then they decided to work on more 'features' to needle cash out of people with.

In short, Fall of the Dominion is best summarised as a poorly updated money grab. One that deviates from much of what made the original game fun, and suffers greatly as a result.

I played this game in open beta between 2005 and 2007, and again following its official release. The version available today on Steam is a buggy, confusing, shadow of its former self. New players have no idea what to do, there's no introduction or tutorial. The faction system is completely broken, filled with junk player-created factions. The RPG element (LED, FDC, BoS, GoM, etc) has been completely stripped which leaves the game lacking any clear direction.

I don't write reviews because I'm to lazy for that, but this game is that bad, for many reasons.
1) If you want to join half the factions you have to sit trough a hour long presentation done by a player to describe what you will do(or join a faction with 1 person that cant do anything). Thats not a joke, I sat down(in game) and listened to a player talk about the faction and say what we would do in game for 60 minutes, after this he actually sent a test around to everyone to see if we listened. He gave us a time to get on and play the next day so we could do a second class which would initiate us into the group. I wanted a game not a online school.
2) After this I went to find combat in hopes I could blow someone elses brains out before this game made me blow my own out. Combat is the most bland and slow part of the game, including a test and lecture, you run in a circle clicking till one of you dies and then do it again and again till you delete the game.
3) It claims to be a OPEN WORLD SOCIAL EXPERIMENT THAT IS SO NEXT LEVEL AND NEW yet it lacks any real structure which stops it from letting you actually have a effect on anything, you cant send a faction toppling down if death is meaningless and the structure is barely there anyway. If death meant more then, wait to respawn and factions lost something if a leader or anyone actually died it would be better.
4) Respawning- either wait awhile or pay, not pay to win, pay to live.
5) Starting out you have no idea what to do, there is no real tutorial to explain what the factions do or how to play. This means you have to do the 60 minute lecture(again not a joke) and test or you wont do anythin.
6) Graphics... enough said.

EDIT- I forgot to mention how horrible the players are, I saw dozens of new players ask what to do and the response everytime was "It's a social experiment you can do anything." The least helpful lie I have ever seen. We weren't asking what the game was supposed to be we wanted to know how to finish a quest or how to do something in a faction.
Also, if you don't like roleplaying or prefer to tone it down a little then you will not fit in with your faction at all, hardcore RP or get off.

TL;DR- Horrible people, graphics, gameplay, and a 60 minute lecture and test(Read #1)

I played this game for a little over two hours and let me tell you they were a grueling two hours. The map system doesn't do a good job of distingushing between the various levels on the map, nor does it accurately mark where things are. Furthermore, leaving the designated safe zone is practically giving a green light to every other player to shoot you in the face multiple times. Not to fear if you die though you can respawn! (If you decide to wait, or better yet pay money, very foreboding of microtransactions). Other than that this game is practically just Second Life but with guns. Sure it has a few "skills" you can train by pressing the button to accept training then waiting upwards of 120hrs for a timer. Furthermore the game shoots itself in the foot by allowing anyone and everyone willing to wait out the skill timers total access to your things. Yup, no safe places here, if some ten year old kid decides he wants your stuff then by all means he can litterally go into your apartment and take everything. All in all the game seemed like such a great promise but it's sub-par planning means that it'll eventually topple itself and we'll have one more game on steam that just takes up space.

Don't. Just, don't.

This game's premise is good on paper; An MMO that's like a more civilized version of Planetside; Player-made factions are trying to take control of parts of maps, i.e Manhattan. You can join any faction and "change the game world" along with it.

I say that in quotations because, honestly, this game's execution is terrible. Not only is the game unforgivably laggy (THIS IS A GAME FROM 2004), but very few people are ever playing: 500. I shouldn't meet the same bloody people every time I play.

Don't download this, just don't. Use the 5 gigs for other things.

Edit: Apparently, this review's the 2nd highest rated for the game, so I want to expand my thoughts a bit further:

I initially liked Face of Mankind; As mentioned before, I was interested in the idea of factions. I adored the Planetside series, so why not give FoM a try? For the first few hours, I enjoyed it.

And then I encountered the many flaws of the game. For one, there isn't too much to do as a lone wolf; Joining a faction is essentially required in order to get full enjoyment out of the game. I know that factions are what give life to this game, but what if I want to be a lone wolf? I play lots of multiplayer games in that manner, and I still have fun. What gives?

Another thing: There isn't even an option to protect yourself outside of Brooklyn; Step in the wrong territory, you're dead. There's obvious trolls just wanting to randomly kill those who look ridiculously weak. I would've appreciated an RPG-like style of combat, as I find the FPS elements of this game...Well, terrible.

Speaking of the community, 95% of the people you meet in-game are absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s, just wanting to grab your loot (That's right: You lose items upon death. And there's no protection to protect you from trolls.) I met a few friendly faction leaders who gave me some supplies to start off in the game, and I joined a decent faction.

And then I come across another problem: What exactly is there to do in this game? The answer: Not much. Mining and shooting's all you're doing. Nothing else.

Faction battles are boring because they eventually descend into the faction leaders essentially giving essays about their life stories. And mining gets boring because...It's mining. You can't make a living out of mining in the game. It's ridiculously boring...Unlike some other game in which mining is the main focus of the game. And that's still lots of fun.

And then in the final hour of me playing this, I had a nice Copkiller in hand and some nice armor. I was happy.

And then, while I was AFK, some idiot came in and killed me. WHILE I WAS AFK. See what I mean about the community?

The graphics are also terrible; This is a modern game. I expect a modern game to at least have decent graphics. This is a game from 2004. Heck, even KOTOR (From 2003) looked decent, AND THAT WAS A YEAR BEFORE THIS. Yes, it's an unfair comparison, but this is just unacceptable.

Don't spend money on this game. Don't download it. Save your time. This is a terrible game.

Edit #2: Oh my god. We have to pay for this ♥♥♥♥ now?

What are the developers THINKING!? It's bad enough that the game was like this at a F2P state, but now they're expecting us to pay 15 bucks for such an unpolished game!? By making the game buy-to-play, they've essentially killed the influx of new players that were interested in this game. Ridiculous.

Do not buy this game. Want an experience that's similar to this but thousands of times better? Get Planetside 2, it's a fantastic game. Avoid Face of Mankind at all costs.

---Updated----
Here's the verdict

Pros:
Laughing at the dev team.

Cons:
Now pay 2 play
My dog could crap out a better F2P
Dev's & Staff are more corrupt then President Obama
Uninstall wasn't fast enough
I'll never get back the time that was spent playing this mountain of ♥♥♥♥ vomit
The community is more toxic then Ebola

Rating; Middle Finger of 10

well this game i dont knwo what to say about but only that the GMs are rubbish they have been useing their powers to supply 2 factions with infenate money and have told the faction i was with to disband or get banned.
i reccomend this to no one if any one is looking to play this i suggest read this befor you play this crappy game GM are in 2 diffrent faction (swag rats and Euro Core) they have been useing their powers aka shooting through walls god mode and other stuff like that

FoM is nothing but a load of crap and should be put of From steam

Dear Steam if you are looking at this i suggest you remove this game for fraud

thank you for lookgin at this review

After about an hour you have a gun, some armor, some ammo, and nothing to do. The tutorial missions just kind of stop and leave you without direction. I saw zero combat in my time playing. I'd steer clear.

This game has good settings. People play in Roleplay. Beyond that, as a beginner, there's nothing more. Only explore, get items, better gear, participate in community, and so on. The only reason I leave this game is because I got killed while I'm opening my menu. I know it's my own fault, but I just hate the game system when you die, you lose all your items and eventually your armor. In my view, it's not my type of game.

Your community is the real gameplay. I joined a community (either bounty hunters, researchers, miners, defenders, etc) and the gameplay truly based on how you interact with the community (so far). You are given a job/position, you do it, then that's it. You cant voice chat either. The UI needs to be fixed a lot, the quality is not good. You can try to compare it with planetside 2's UI.

Horrible player retention, close to no tutorial or any mechanics to support any kind of content. Anything negative you post on the forums is instantly deleted and your account is banned. Game has no future and managed to kill itself of again with horrible development decision and by completely ignoring any feedback given by the people who have them 60 grand in a kickstarter.

Giant joke, dont even bother.

I have no idea what to do in this game. I couldn't find a tutorial or something. Everyone is just walking around. The players/characters are blocking each other. This is really annoying. Weird controlls and premium limitations made me quit this game really fast. Once you die you have to wait or pay money to respawn. Some areas/locations seem to be limited to premium only.

Its another game which failed and now goes for free to play with pay to win.

130$ / 120€ for a lifetime premium.



Wikipedia: Face of Mankind is free to play, offering a premium subscription as well as some items available as bonuses for purchasing certain subscriptions. Some of the premium bonuses include faster spawning, increased item storage, and ability to get the highest ranks in factions and even become faction leaders

This game would be good if not EVERY SINGLE ♥♥♥♥ING THING WOULD WANT YOU DEAD

They had a chance, and blew it, 2 months no patch, no response from the devs or anyone, I've had a ticket up for over a month and it hasnt been touched, 0/10.

So Imagine that you tried to saw off your own leg with a bottle of mountain dew and it got stuck half way through then it got infected and you eventually had to amputate your whole bottom half turning you into a vegitable. that is this game. that is what it feels like. NO

I did not enjoy this game at all.

OUTDATED Graphics has a huge impact on the game. If I wanted to play a playstation 1 game I would. When it came out the graphics were good at that time, but 10 years later and they are still the same... Some people have no problem with this, or ignore it.. But you have to realize, some gamers have standards, and when you work on a game over the years the way it looks should be included....
The devs have been working on this game for what over a decade and cant get the game to updated present day graphics.... What are they using the money from the game purchases on? I would personally help them get a better engine for this game to run on.

So you are saying well, if the graphics are bad then the gameplay and play fun factor just HAS to compensate right?

Asside from that, the gameplay is horrible, the tutorial of telling you how to access your apartment, how to travel to a different area, how to find people on your map WHEN you have a quest, and how to create ammo how to mine all of that is very very basic. like I said, a lot of people would say well whats wrong with that?

well its very very basic. there Could be a lot of stuff that could be more detailed in explaining how to do something. The controls NEED to be more user friendly. because it isnt. I think there is a lot of things you could do, but dont because simply of not knowing how and guess what theres no explaining of how to do it. Example, I started a hacking skill set.... But you look at the hacking interface.... WTF am I suppose to do? No explaination as to what to do. Yes I could just click and fail over and over until figure it out. . . But my point being, ok game in dev for this long and WHY doesnt it have a basic way of helping or explaining what to do....?

but after the tutorials, the game has nothing else to tell you what to do.... doesnt tell you what is in the different locations, doesnt have a safe zone, doesnt tell you any real detail of anything. While I played I ventured out on my own Not knowing what else to do.... The tutorial only teaches you how to mine, and how to craft a gun, and ammo. The character skill tree is very Nice I did like that. But there was nothing else I could figure out what to do.

The maps werent very helpful, apparently there are events that is happening but no where does the game highlight this. you pretty much have to wonder around aimlessly and hope to god you run into something. The game has virturally no NCPs, I wondered around a lot went into lots of buildings, bars, places where people should be and there was no one.

Im sorry, but to be working on this game over ten years and this is all that you can come up with...bug fixes every week isnt a update.
Its sad and a sad excuse for a game. Its very outdated and I do give it it has tons of potential, but its not worth it for now. I purchased the full package and gave it a try. but it was a waste of money for now.

Pros-
Very detailed skill tree, no grinding for materials
Its still in early access(room for improvement)
Good Idea for a game

Cons-
Poor graphics
Poor Controls
No details for what to do after the basic tutorial
Game been in development for over 10 years and still feels like a not finished playstation 1 game
Very little no NCPs, (lots of areas are just empty)
No other help with how to do anything else

Horrible game, horrible community, and horrible development "team". Do not play. And that is coming from someone who first started playing this game in 2005. After receiving $60,000 in kickstarter funds from the veteran playerbase the development "team" (essentially one guy who has never made a video game before telling one mediocre programmer what to do) wasted it with a bull headed development strategy that alienated the very base that funded the kickstarter. Get ready for ZERO communication from staff about the game besides from a game master or two who are left out of the loop as much as the players, if not more so. Don't even get me started with the arguments the main developer has entered into with the playerbase. The game is run by adults who are emotionally children. The game mechanics themselves are very shallow and amounts to a planetside-esque takeover system that is just slow enough to be painfully boring (get ready to sit in one area with little to no activity for 2+ hours for world service takeovers and 40 minutes for territory takeoevers) and just quick enough that all of your progress can be erased in an inactive timezone. Combine that together and you have a system that makes owning anything a second job. The combat is mostly unrewarding and large scale fights are little more than zerg wars. Producing anything isn't any better either. Good luck trying to make a fortune as a supplier of goods, the margins just aren't there but if you have 6+ hours a day to idle farm mining rigs you can make a fortune on recycling minerals and have enough cash to last you forever.

The developers have abandoned ship for another game they are making in secret while using any funds generated from this game for it. They've given up, you should too. Go find another game to play.