At first I rejoyced in finally being able to play with my friends and family while we played because we always seem to be off level and get the can't join messages. I enjoyed grouping with them.
Then late last night, I unlocked a new character and experienced the hell that is scaling without gear...
Enter midtown level 1, run a block to the boss fight, gain a level on the way there. At boss fight, level again from random trash getting killed by aoe. And again, and again, this is going great, dps is slowing down but ok, ding 6 ding 7 holy crap their hurting alot. ding 8 health pots! health pots! ding 9 and dead - magenetos aoe eats me (i think) Hello level 9 and no gear. Ran back over, hugged outside the combat hoping to get boss drops to gear up, dead again. 3rd times the charm, get some loot.
You know what level caps did? it made it so you could gear up before leaving the area, that without gear, the mobs in the area were killable so you could get gear. This scaling is proving to be a great idea that really hurts when it's flaws show up.
I did it again today, new char, ran out, got to a 10 pack of mobs right outside door... I leveled to 4 with killing a couple of them, at which point the remaining started hitting for over half health, got one more dead, ding 5 and I'm dead, run back out, can't kill any before they kill me, and I've not even looted a single piece of gear.
I really don't want to go do storyline but that seems like the only choice for new characters now - midtowns a deathtrap for a fresh level 1.
Side note - the scaling seems really horrible when others are nearby, especially higher levels, I can be sitting there killing something just fine then a high level shows up and dps drops to what appears to be nothing, boss exp bar doesn't even seem to move if I'm the only one hitting it when a high level is nearby.