Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
Your logo is quite amazing. The text and images go very well together and I like how you have the zombies in the background. It isn't too hard to read and fits in very well with your theme. I first landed on your homepage and I really like how you show the Dead Island game news on it. This gives users a chance to keep up to date with the latest news and it's the first thing they can read when visiting your forum. I also like how you have the current poll on the left hand side. It's not hard to navigate away from it as you have a navigation box on the left and the main navigation on the top.
Browsing to your forum I liked the idea of the Dead Island Forums showing the last three posts instead of only one, It will save a little time looking for recent replies rather than going into that forum.
(Score: 19/20)
Site Layout
You have seven forum sections, which is a great amount for a forum your size. everything is placed well, you have the main form sections and below that is the statistics. The reputation pip which show if you have positive or negative don't blend with the dark background. They are more sited for lighter backgrounds, so I would suggest getting some icons which have a transparent background, usually they have a PNG extension. Also, the editor icons in both the quick reply and new reply don't blend with the grey color, especially the icon for both italics and font color.
I like how member profiles show gamertags for all systems including Xbox, Play Station, Steam and Raptr. It shows you are a gaming forum and allows other gamers to interact with each other, not just on the forums.
The contest involving the Dead Island game is a great idea, but in the rules it says to reply to the topic when you have 25 posts or over. From what I could see, post count isn't showing in posts and when I go to my profile I can't find my own post count anywhere. I can read post counts of other members if I go to their profile and view the statistics tab. If members haven't counted their posts, how will they know how many they have unless they view their profile as if they were another member.
(Scored 18/20)
Statistics and Activity
For being open only a month, the 3,000+ posts is a great achievement. It shows the forum has great potential. Activity is also great on your forum. I can see that 54 members logged on within the last 24 hours, which shows awesome activity. But my concern is, are they coming back to read/browse or to interact more with the community? I would definitely try and motivate members who joined before the newer ones to come back and post more. Although, the contest you have to win the Dead Island game will surely heighten your activity and statistics levels.
(Scored 18/20)
Staff Moderation
I can see you are doing a great job on this behalf. I can't find any instances of SPAM, flame wars or member abuse on the forums. It seems you have everything under control, keep up the good work.
Although, I did have trouble finding out who was staff as there was no staff/team page on your forum. I know by default vBulletin shows this, so I was curious as to why you removed the link. For members to be able to distinguish who is staff and who isn't without reading any posts, I'd certainly think about adding this feature back in. They might not want to use the Contact Us page.
(Scored 18/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
I couldn't find any mistakes in both your forum titles or descriptions. They both have proper spelling and grammar, so well done on this part. After browsing through some topics/posts made, I couldn't find any mistakes from the forum staff. You seem to be professional on this part as each topic/post made has the correct spelling and grammar. There are a couple of members who don't use the correct spelling or grammar, so I would try and persuade them to at least use capitals when starting a sentence. Although this isn't a major point, it will in my opinion look more professional and not look as if they don't care when writing replies.
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score - 91/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
Active forum for the time it's been open. I love the logo and the staff seem to be doing a great job. The homepage is also a great addition.
Things to Improve
Possibly adding a staff/team page and showing members post total in either their posts or in their profiles.
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