What is the latest greatest mmorpg out there?
What makes a game great....
1. balanced pvp system
2. highly customizable character - If you can't create a truly gimped character then there isn't enough customization.
3. Interesting 1st person content.
Anyone playing Tabula Rasa?
While I disagree with your analysis of what makes a MMO great, there are a couple of options for you out there that meet your requirements.
I would first check out and see what Guild Wars is doing these days. It has a very good single player game that easily morphs into multiplayer and the PVP was pretty deep. It has the bonus of having no monthly fee.
I would also check out EVE Online. This game perhaps matches what you are looking for better than any other. The game has a pretty brutal learning curve but has an amazingly deep experience in pvp, world (galaxy?) building, and the customization is beyond anything not named City of Heros.
Tabula Rasa is an interesting game. I first saw it back at E3 2004 when it was as much of a fantasy MMO as it was sci/fi one. I got really sold on it then and could not wait to get a chance to play test it. Fast forward to Janurary 2007 when my beta invite comes in and it is a very different game. It went from Fantasy/Scifi to something more akin to a shooter. While the game does still have elements of previous story it felt more like Halo than any MMO I had ever played. I ended up dumping the beta after about three months as I could not really get into it. There was no real pvp at the time, but they did allow cloning.
This was something that was pretty neat, you could create a copy of your character at various decision points in their development. If you did not like the path you went down you could back up and play the clone instead of starting over. Was pretty nifty, but I do not know if it made it into final production.
I look for something a little different in an MMO, and if someone can recommend one for me that preferably has a free trial. I look for the following in a great MMO:
1> Gameplay (Is it fun, easy to play, and free form.)
2> Challenge (If I can watch Anime w/subtitles while playing, it is too easy.)
3> Interface (Manipulation, Customization, Elimination)
Yah, before mmorpgs my play history was with FPS.
Since UO I've almost exclusively played FPS's and MMORPGs.
Now heres a game released 2 months ago, from no less than Richard Garriet (who I view as a visionary), which combines my two favorite genres together.
I'm thinking I have to give it a try.
*edit - oh and I've got friends that have played both eve and guild wars. I'll talk to them about it.