Finally took the plunge for MAG on PS3. It's a game I've had my eye on for a while but, for certain reasons, wasn't sure I wanted to buy into. I realized there was a demo for Playstation Plus members and grabbed it. Shortly after I bought the full game and DLC on PSN.

For those not familiar with it, MAG stands for Massive Action Game. It's an online FPS with gametypes featuring no less than 64 players and scaling up to 256 at a time. It also features stat progression and levelling like many other modern online shooters. It has a command system that's really neat, too, and allows squad leaders and battlefield commanders to lead the huge numbers of players with a surprising degree of effectiveness. It also reward teamwork and objective-based gameplay in addition to kill counts. In fact one of the most popular ways of levelling up new soldiers is to grab a medkit and run around healing people.

The best part of the game, for me, is the combination of welcomeness to casual players with genuine objective-based gameplay. The player counts mean guys like me who don't care to be very competitive can coexist with ultracompetitive folks on the same team.

I've been having a blast with it. The main reason I waited to pick it up was the (at one time) $100+ entry fee ($60 for the game, $50 for the headset, which you NEED). But it was worth it, and now I have a headset for LBP2 and other games as well. The $30 PSN price made it more appealing, and even with $13 worth of DLC it's the 2nd cheapest PS3 game I've ever bought.

I just hope they fix the character slot unlock bug soon.

I'm fighting under Raven, BTW.

Are there still a lot of people playing? I considered picking this up, but I need a headset as well.

I haven't had trouble finding games. Usually a pretty short wait. There's a "Multiqueue" option that queues you up for any gametypes you're eligible for, and offers bonus experience to encourage people to use it. That keeps things rolling smoothly even if individual gametypes aren't. But I've never waited more than a minute or two for a game to start after queueing.

I picked up the revised PS3 bluetooth headset. I like it a lot. Sound quality is excellent. I've been using it with my phone, too. Definitely worth the $50 considering how much other quality bluetooth headsets cost. It's comfortable, lightweight, and battery life seems excellent.

what about the graphics?
Any lag issues?
I am using the px21 turtle beach headset, bit on the pricey side but its a gaming headset that works with the 360 and ps3, very comfortable and great sound quality

I have not noticed ANY lag. At all. MAG games are hosted by dedicated servers, so the only connection you really have to worry about is your own. Games like CODpiece are hosted by one of the players in each match (you've probably noticed the whole game pausing to pick a new host thing...the game chooses by player latency). There's none of that with MAG. Another part of the purpose of the dedicated servers is the persistent/dynamic world the "Shadow War" takes place in. Who attacks or defends for a given round of a given gametype is determined by who last took control of the assets that gametype revolves around.

Graphics are definitely not wow-worthy, but they get the job done. It's not the PS2 Socom lookalike a lot of people bill it as, but eyecandy was never a focus for it. There are times for snipers where it can be hard to pick out targets from the background due to the lack of good LOD scaling through the scope, though.