Good article for the most part. The Federation storyline is really excellent and enjoyable to play. I even bought more character slots during various cstore sales to do them over again without having to delete my existing characters sinceI keep characters of every tier to help out fleetmates without overpowering the mobs with my VAs.

The problem comes at level cap and throuhout most of the Klingon side. I have two Klingon LT Generals and they were kinda hellish to get to level cap without any story to play. At VA, the only thing left to do is to grind emblems to get better gear to grind emblems to get better gear. If not grinding emblems then PvP without consequences or anything else to get the fight or flight reflexes going.

That being said, Cryptic has been working on Klingon content that should relieve the tedium of playing the faction and like someone else said, the ground combat is being reworked to deal with some of the complaints.

Cryptic has made tremendous strides in STO with content and since they listen to the community pretty well, they have also dealt with some of the longstanding issues like the popsicle stick planets in sector space.

This is something to keep in mind with Cryptic games.

Other developers tend to make MMOs where every level takes more time than the last.

Cryptic games tend to speed up your progress over time. You don't have any humps to overcome later in leveling and the first 10-20 levels the first time through will take you almost as long as everything else.