Your Quick Review
Pros:
Honestly, I don't see too many gaming forums using a light colored skin, they're out there, but not many. and yours does look really good. But, it's too white. A forum about gaming should reflect the material, you need some color somewhere. A well designed banner with different gaming characters is a good start. Also, maybe try a different background color for the forum, the portion outside of the forum border.
Cons:
Right off the bat. Your forum banner. It just looks like an image was pasted there .. but does not fit the border, and is quite dull. I'm assuming your forum looks about 700 pixels wide, so why not get a banner that size? And, why a sack boy? You've got a plethora of other popular gaming images you could use. You could use a sack boy, that's cool ... but just him, against a white background looks very plain and boring.
Also up top, in the banner, your slogan. No.1 Zone Gaming. Shouldn't it say something more like, No.1 Zone For Gaming? Just seems like it would make more sense that way.
I really don't like the side menus on the side of the forum. They're really pointless, and make the forum look unattractive. Your forum is new, and off to slow start, so why have an "extra" log-in box, top forum posters, and latests posts on the forum plastered there. It's really not necessary, if anything, have these at the bottom of the forum. Getting rid of those, will also help expand your forum body's width, which the boards are VERY scrunched in together.
And, while looking around, the forum is obviously geared more towards PS3 & 360 consoles, just by judging what game titles you decided to make as boards. I think you have WAY too many, and need to start out slow. Don't rush and think you need every popular game series in it's own board ( which actually makes me feel these are your favorite game series, cause noone is posting in them , so it had to be you who decided which games get their own section). Alot of attention seems to be really geared towards Maple Story, also.
Less is Better with new forums. Then, you wait and see what is more popular, or what members suggest need their own forums.
Here's what I don't get, this is your forum, so you make these sections for these games ... but you're not talking anything about these games in any of the gaming sections. You say the forum opened on 10/14/09 ... but it's actually been created since 9/26/09. So you've had plenty of time to try and get topics and discussions at least started somewhere. Noone's gonna do it for you.
The forum is also very disorganized in other aspects. The top section looks good, though, I would swap Suggestion, with Inroduce Yourself. It makes sense to have anything forum related close to each other. News > Site Talk > Suggestions ... keep em organized together. then, Intros should come last in this section.
I have no idea why you have an "interupting" board inbetween your gaming forums. The Promotion section. Why is this. This section should be the VERY last section of your fourm. You don't want guests & members scroling down the main theme of the forum, and then click and look at other forums.
And, again ... the Graphics section is out of place. It interupts the main theme gaming. Members have to scroll pass 2 off-topic categories, then see the Online Gaming section.
Though, personally, I think you should just delete the Online Gaming sections ... and just have ONE board, with a few of those as sub-board ... or better yet, sub-boards for Online console Gaming. And see what games members post and talked about. Even better, you can actually make topics of the games you already listed ... and see who are interested in those.
Final/General Thoughts:
Sorry if i came off as harsh ... but it's hard to understand why these simple mistakes happen over and over; I understand if you're new to forums .. and if you are, don't rush into it. Take your time, look at other forums like yours and see what wokrs for them. BUT, remember, some forums are bigger and motre active, just becasue they have a lot of sections you added; doesn't mean yours will be as active.
What was most liked about the website/forums:
The light skin template, though it seems like a default theme, and it wayyy too white. Needs more color, or gaming references to distinguish it as a gaming forum.
What was disliked most about the website/forums:
So many things. If I had to chose one, or a couple. the very disorganized feel the forum had. and, the fact there are too many excessive boards, and no posts in any gaming section. Stuff like that just really confuzzles me when an admin makes a gaming site ... but doesn't talk about games.
Final Score : 6.5 - (Out of 10)
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