We just posted our Awesomenauts review yesterday, giving it a healthy 4 out of 5 in our Co-Op Review. One of our small complaints about the game was that its hero roster was quite small - only 6 heroes currently. It looks like that issue will be addressed soon with at least one new awesomenaut on the horizon.

Many of you are likely aware of the fast-growing and popular PC genre known as MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas). Once only found as mods to RTS games, MOBAs have been taking the world by storm for the past few years, spawning communities numbering in the millions. The nature of the games have mostly restricted them to the PC, but Awesomenauts dares to ask why a MOBA can't succeed in the console world. What's the verdict? Find out in our co-op review.

This month's installment of MMOCO is a bit of a philosophical edition. Stuff has certainly gone down within the last month in the MMO department, but it's kind of a steady murmur. And as I sat here, trying to figure out what to focus on for this month's edition, it struck me that we MMO players are in the middle of a pretty great time of innovation and change of the genre.

Here we go again, folks! It's a new edition of Beyond Co-Op, the weekly column that rounds up some of the interesting industry news that doesn't strictly pertain to co-op. This week we have a selection that pertains to new games and upcoming shows/conventions! Here's what we have on tap:

With Diablo 3 mere weeks away, dungeon crawler enthusiasts may be a little focused on keeping their eyes on that prize - but let's not forget that there will still be other dungeon crawlers coming out this year. One such is R.A.W (Realms of Ancient War), which will happily be coming to consoles as well as PC. This is likely great news for players who may be bemoaning their luck that Diablo 3 will only be launching this month on the PC. Developer Wizarbox's latest video focuses on the wizard class, showing off his prowess over the elements. 

Free-to-play strategy/MMO hybrid Age of Empires Online will be introducing a slight change to its payment method when the game's summer update launches. Currently, players can elect to purchase additional content (such as new civilizations, booster packs, and vanity items) for real-world money. Non-paying customers are, to the best of my knowledge, unable to access this content (though it is by no means necessary to successfully play the game). When the summer update goes live in 5-7 weeks, all the store content will be purchased with Empire Points, not standard credit card transactions.

This year at PAX East, the showfloor was bursting with MMOs, Free-to-Play (F2P) games, and F2P MMOs. We went hands-on with some and were shown the demo for others. If you missed our impressions of these games before, sit back and relax while I round them up for you and break them down.

One of the fun aspects of Torchlight was the pet system. Characters were accompanied by a cat or dog companion who would faithfully guard their side and run to and from town selling their phat lewts. Upcoming Torchlight 2 will also feature pets, but this time with even more choices. Players will be able to choose between at least 8 different pets, and Runic's latest pet video shows them off, showcasing the latest addition: the Papillon. This pet is actually based off of Runic's office mascot, Falcor! Check out the full video below.

Last weekend at PAX East, I had the opportunity to check out TERA, an upcoming action MMO. Buzz has been in the air about TERA for quite some time, but it was only last weekend that I had a chance to go hands-on with it.

At PAX East, I had the chance to be walked and talked through the upcoming D&D Online expansion, Menace of the Underdark (MotU). As would be expected of a DDO expansion, MotU is story-driven. A fissure has opened up right in the middle of the capital city in Eberron which leads to other D&D realms, including the worlds of the Underdark and the Forgotten Realms. The Spinner of Shadows, Lolth’s agent in the DDO universe, is behind all this madness. Players will travel through four huge areas (the Demonweb, the Underdark, Evening Star, and King’s Forest) as a hero from another world, trying to unravel why the drow are invading the town of Evening Star and the nature of “the thread of the weave.”

Part two of my appointment with Perfect World Entertainment was for the other F2P MMO they have in the works: Neverwinter. This is a title I’ve been excited about every since it was announced, but it’s gone through some big changes since that announcement. The developer from the start has always been Cryptic Studios (the guys behind City of Heroes/Villians, Champions Online, and Star Trek Online), but they’ve changed publishers. Also, I was originally under the impression that it was intended as a multiplayer game, and now it’s a F2P MMO. I won’t lie - I was a little nervous about some of these changes; it turns out though that my fears were unfounded because the game looks absolutely great.

After surveying the show floor at PAX East, Nick and I came to the same conclusion: 2012 looks like it's going to be a strong year for free-to-play (F2P) games, MMOs, and yes, F2P MMOs. Case in point was my first PAX East appointment: publisher Perfect World Entertainment. PWE's specialization is quality F2P MMOs and they were showcasing two such titles for the convention: Raiderz and Neverwinter. This post will be covering Raiderz.

Journey has been out for half a month. We gave it the very highest score possible: a 5 out of 5 co-op score with a 5 out of 5 overall score. We didn't say much about the game, so as not to spoil it, but we told you guys it was a truly beautiful game in respect to story, visuals, and music. Well, it seems that the world agrees. Journey has become the fastest-selling game released on the PSN.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been dabbling in Dota 2. It’s one of those RTS/action games where you take control of a hero unit and defend your base from the opposing team. Though the focus of these games is usually competitive, Dota 2 supports a pretty good co-op mode (probably the best I’ve seen for the genre). Any number of players can form up on a team, fill up the remaining slots with bots, and go up against an all-bot team in good, old-fashioned comp-stomp. The bots are available in five different difficulty levels, so it’s easy to tweak the experience based on whether the players are new to the game or experienced. Of late, I’ve found the co-op mode a great way to blow off some steam.

This month in MMO Co-Opportunities we do something a little different. Rather than highlight a certain MMO, or do an MMO news round-up, we look at some of the reasons we play MMOs as co-op games.