I also felt the actual tutorial was way too short. You show up, you walk somewhere, you kill four things, you help/kill a guy, then you fight a big monster and you're done.
All this time you're probably wondering to yourself, "Inspirations? What are those? What's this Enhancement tab? How do I even use my powers? Who is that guy?"
In Beta I always chalked it up to the rest of the tutorial not being ready for release, but surprise, it went live like that.
Now, I'll probably be talked sternly to for this, but if you compare it to the tutorial in Champions Online, you can really see how it doesn't quite go the distance expected of a tutorial.
In Champions you get a little cutscene telling you what's going on. CoH does this too, albeit with an easily-missable comic that you can read during the very short loading screen.
All through the CO tutorial you're given missions that kinda clue you into how to play the game, from beating down enemies to escorting lost citizens to recovering items and bringing them back to your quest giver.
Along the way you meet a bunch of characters who explain the situation further, along with a little of the backstory, and by the end you know exactly what's going on and exactly what's at stake.
The penultimate step of the CO tutorial is to take part in a public mission that involves firing an iron person out of a cannon and destroying the Qularr (Rikti) mothership (The wreckage of which can then be seen in the city proper after you leave)
The final step is to actually waltz into the Champions' (Freedom Phalanx's) home base and clear it out. You meet up with Defender (Statesman) and the both of you take on Black Talon (Black Scorpion), at which point you learn of an even greater threat to the city: Dr. Destroyer (Lord Recluse).
After you defeat him and leave the Champions' HQ, you walk triumphantly past a ton of soldiers, all of which are saluting your bravery and whatever, and meet the mayor who grants you the Key to the City for being so cool.
So just like that you get to have a cool adventure, you learn the backstory of CO, you learn who the main enemy is (and the following zones all have you taking on another of Dr. Destroyer's (Recluse's) Lt.s, which makes the tutorial play into the rest of the game) and you're ready for the rest of CO.
Personally, I'd have done the tutorial a little differently, and if you're not bored yet, here's how!
Now granted there aren't any "items" in the game, but it couldn't hurt to have Otacon-- Er, the tutorial guy actually be standing somewhere in the zone. Say he contacts you by radio initially, and you have to find and save him from Shivans.
Once he's safe, he gives you a mission to recover a super-Shivan-melter so that he can set up a safe zone. Just like that, you know what it's like to enter a mission and find a glowie.
Once the safe zone is up, he takes on the task of accruing medical supplies and stuff to help the wounded. Your next job is to save a bunch of people trapped in a burning building so that you know what escort missions are like. The last person you save is actually a wounded hero who kinda botched his rescue mission. If you help him out he gives you a handful of inspirations (or you can beat him down further for being such a weakling, which gives you double the amount of inspirations).
Once you're done with that mission, you can return to the safe zone. Surprise! Now there's a nurse there, and what's-his-face has you introduce yourself so you know what nurses are for. After that he decides that the next step should be to take the fight to the Shivans and push them out of the area, and to do that you're going to have to rally the scattered heroes and bring them back to the safe zone.
So you go to another mission where you meet one of the city's random NPC heroes. This hero is one of those tryhards, who ended up buying too many enhancements, so he/she shares them with you 'cause that's what friends are for! Also, you can threaten them with a beatdown to get more enhancements, but while this makes you stronger it debuffs them by a small amount. Either way though, this mission shows you what it's like to have an NPC buddy.
This mission will take place outdoors so you know what it's like to have an outdoor map and have to search high and low for other heroes. Also so you don't have to fight for spawns with other players.
Anywho, after that the safe zone will have a Hero Corps field trainer, and you get to go talk to him and learn about buying and selling enhancements.
So then you have one more mission that involves finding a scientist and leading him to a doohickey to reactivate a thing that blows up more Shivans, and after that you discover that you and your new allies have cleared out all the Shivans, but OMG THERE'S SOME KIND OF TERRIBLE DISTURBANCE WHAT COULD IT BE!?
So yeah, Big Shivan time, and when you get to the area you find all your NPC pals standing around (so this way everyone who saved them earlier gets to feel like they were the ones who saved them), and so you beat down some little Shivans to draw out the big one, then beat down the big one.
Yay! The city is saved!
...OR IS IT?
No sir, Lord Recluse is still there.
So now you get a big final mission, and this is the one where all your kindness or selfishness earlier can come into play.
Your NPC friends are already in the mission, brawling with Arachnos to push through into their safe zone and get them out of the city. After you save them you get to have a little chat with them and either bolster their heroism or convince them that being selfish and power-hungry owns. Some will agree with your choices, others will flip out and fight you, but whatever, you're better than them, so down they go.
It all leads up to finding the last person, who is pulling a Blue Spectrum and is at Death's door. You now make the final morality choice which will decide your alignment. Save him by giving him your powers, which debuffs you, or kill him and take his powers, which buffs you.
If you save him, one of Recluse's Lts busts in and you have an epic fight between them and your friends (one of whom will be a tank to avoid any embarrassing deaths). When you beat them, Recluse and the other three Lts jump in, and he's all "LOL HI" and gets ready to lay down the murder, but then the Freedom Phalanx shows up and Recluse is forced to bail after a vicious beatdown.
If you kill him, you still meet one of Recluse's Lts, but this time they're all "WE'VE BEEN WATCHING YOU, NO NOT IN THE SHOWER WEIRDO" and they offer you an opportunity to come with them to the Isles and become a Destined One. Then one of the Phalanx busts in and you all fight him, then the rest bust in and you're all "Aw." but then Recluse shows up and after a big epic battle the Phalanx is forced to withdraw and you go to the Isles and blah blah blah.
Holy god I need a hobby or something, this was too much to write.
edit: Dammit Sam I'm the wall-of-texter in this thread thank you very much.
I like em, the only thing that bothers me about them is the sound FX seems to play again on defeated enemies.