Despite being one of the greatest multiplayer shooters on console something kept Battlefield Bad Company out sight and mind for the majority of the Halo and Call of Duty players. Maybe the more objective focused gameplay is less appealing to a wider audience, where playing with your team and working towards a goal is key. So you would think a game that's trying to expand the audience with cartoony all most world of Warcraft or Team Fortress style graphics and a faster over the top style of gameplay would be ideal as a free download on the massive community's of Xbox Live and PSN.   

But Battlefield Heroes remains a PC exclusive title, perhaps a testament to DICE's focus on the right game for the right platform and EA's willingness to experiment with a business model that's unproven for shooters at least. So how does Heroes differ from previous games in the series? For a start it's in third person and has a cut down class system leaving out some of the more support focused classes in favour of the solider, commando and heavy gunner. Each play quite differently and have a different range of abilities for example the commando can make himself invisible but is ineffective in a close quarters gun battle.  Each class also has its own customisations for both appearance and in game performance.

This of course is the long term make or break point for Heroes, the in game store. You will start out with a bit of cash to get you browsing and are even rewarded a few points either to upgrade abilities or to spend in the store when you complete certain objectives in game. The art style of the game (which is cartoony, over the top comedy, World War 2) its clear serves to do more than allow the game to run on low spec machines.  Naturally if you pay for a custom outfit for your character you want it to look good and stand out in game and still be able to make it out if you are playing on a laptop made before Apple met Intel.

But more to the point will anyone be willing to drop hard cash for these virtual items. I personally tend to be the type of person who plays these games for the free part and leave it to others to keep the game profitable. But being able to try out an item or two in the beginning (including a bit extra I had left over from the beta) got me interested in week long XP boosts and whatever other convenience items they offer.

I should be clear they are convenience items and I was impressed when buying a new version of the sniper rifle for the next two weeks that while it had a better range it was slower to load and carried fewer bullets. Clear proof you can't just buy your way to victory. Battlefield Heroes relies on two things, a style and gameplay that's going to be interesting or at the very least, still fun over a year down the line and a community that's willing to drop a few quid every now and then. Does it have that?

Ask me this time next year.