A bunch of us got into the game when it launched back in 2004. I remember we loaded them onto the PCs in the animation lab at UH and had some marathon gaming sessions while waiting for projects to render.
I remember the late nights and the dreaded 15 minute warning that the servers were going to shut down for the evening for maintenance...which was probably a good thing because the servers would shut down around 3am Hawaii time. I remember seeing the giant octopus in the harbor for the first time and the huge number of players that would show up to battle the thing. I remember when the giant snowmen were actually a threat and you couldn't really take him down by yourself.
Maybe it was because I was a lower level and working my way up but getting into a large group was actually fun and you needed the multiple players and a variety of classes to get by. Maybe it was the community that had me continuously coming back for more. The one thing I did know was that I played the game continuously for about 5 years until about 2009 and even after then, I would go back time to time to run around and fight crime in Paragon City.
I played a little World of Warcraft and I still play a little Champions Online but I didn't play either nearly as much as I did City of Heroes.
So when Napua said that the game kind of went out on a whimper rather than a bang, I was a little sad. I was already sad that City of Heroes would be gone but I think I was more sad that instead of some grand exit, some ending akin to the end of the original City of Heroes Beta where the Ritki invaded, the game ended with...
