Defiance is Borderlands: The MMO without the humor (review)

Video game publisher Trion Worlds is taking a big risk on Defiance. It’s a transmedia experiment — a collaborative effort between Trion and the Syfy channel to produce a massively multiplayer online game alongside a television series. The publisher has reportedly spent more than $70 million developing the game, and it claims the MMO will continue even if the show is canceled. But players might not want to stick around that long.

While Defiance has its fun moments and features a ton of content, it also feels unfinished, paying no more than lip service to the TV show while saddling players with bland graphics, an unintuitive user interface, and performance issues.