How is this game for PvE (player vs environment)? I've gotten the impression the game is geared towards PvP team play, which doesn't interest me much. Can you play the game solo and fight against monsters and such and still have a fun time?
I should address the Solo question, it's a both yes and no. The first area is designed for it but after that it gets harder, you can solo in one zone after the Prologue area after that you have to use NPC henchmen to fill out your group.
The henchmen are a mixed bag, sometimes they show remarkable intellegence and other times they just stand there as you get beat upon. There are many areas of the game that would be near impossible with the henchmen because of how they can be unreliable and how later maps/zones are set up with large groups of mobs placed close to each other.
After the Prologue it become nearly impossible to pull singles since about 90% of the mobs are linked to at least one other, and in the later areas 6 or so, that come a chargeing even if they're no where near the one you pulled. Plus mobs automaticaly attack the casters in the group even if they aren't the closest fighter so you can be fighting one or two and have 4 archers takeing out your mage and healer, that happened to me today. Had a good group of above lvl 10 players and I died 6 times (healer) in just one small area becaue the groups had at least four mobs in them and they were so close we usealy got two groups. With three different healing spells, to offset skill cooldown timers, I couldn't heal fast enough to offset the damage I was takeing (and that was usealy from just two mobs).
It's hard to say how well you could solo the missions with the henchmen since I've never tried it before, but I'm sure you could do at least the first few no problem.
