On the ‘Midnight Hour’, babe! City of Heroes Issue 12 is rocking up the subscribers to the long-running NCsoft MMORPG.

City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour launched last week, and has been going gangbusters ever since. This newest update introduces the Midnight Squad as playable characters – a curious ensemble of Mystics, Scholars and Mages. This hitherto mythical gathering is being brought out of obscurity to rid Paragon city of alien invaders known as the Rikti. Right now hundreds of thousands of COH fans are aiming to find the secret ingredient that only the Midnight Squad can use, exploring a new zone called Cimerora by means of time travel! Only the Midnight Squad can search here, encouraging stuck-in-the-muds to give them whirl.

The arrival of the Midnight Squad also heralds a new and improved character creation system dubbed Powerset Proliferation. This allows you to use skills belonging to villains for the creation of heroes, and vice-versa. And since NCsoft knows that this will encourage existing players to create new characters, they’ve assigned existing subscribers two new character slots for use on any server.

Finally, Villain Epic Archetypes! Any villain that reaches level 50 unlocks two new epic archetypes: Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows, bursting with deadly attacks!

If you’d like to know more about City of Heroes / Villains check out the official website here: http://www.cityofheroes.com. It may not have the squillions of subscribers boasted by World of Warcraft, but there's a reason why fans keep coming back for more, more, more.