My site, suggestions and critisms please

[feyd]

www.GamerNode.com

Please check through our site throughly, I know we have a couple of obvious improvements needed, but what would be some suggestions as to what you like and what you dont like about the site. Any and all critisms are welcome thank you.

[planetgman]

This looks like a lot of gaming sites, which is not a bad thing. You know what you are getting and what to expect when you go to your site.
I do like the color and the layout. I do think you should have your forum page, the same color and style as the rest of the site. For a second, I thought I was being transported to a different site.
I do like the banners, though I think you could get a better font for your logo. The banners are great though. I like the transparency and the way you did those. Kudos there.
Other than a few things, I think the site looks great.
Good luck....

[goldfish]

I'll give you critisms if you want, but I think you'd prefer some critiCISM.

In all seriousness - the graphics look pretty good. Headings and the content boxes all look great. Your text isn't so good though.
For example: The "Day of Defeat Update" heading is butted almost up against the image - thats not good. Some other bits of text are too near either borders or other text for my liking - separation makes it more readable

The weird table alternating background and font colour is painful to read - especially when its 10pt and bold. Alternating background colours is good, but the contrast is way too much. I'd go with 2 light grey colours for the background, and stick with black for the text. Most people prefer dark on light for ease of reading.

Loading is a little strange. You might consider setting some widths, heights or both in your XHTML, so that the elements don't jump around. The main problem is the first header on each page, which makes the whole content of the page jump down when it loads.

As for the article pages - the copy is way too near the borders, and it is ALL plain text. I would add some formatting (bold, italic, underlines...) and possibly add some other interest as you scroll down (an extra picture box which the text wraps around). I'd also make the background lighter - heavy reading needs clarity. Drop shadow on the images might be a good idea too

I think the main points I've picked up on are spacing, PADDING and contrast of text.

Hope this helps!