Oh oh! I see potential goodness!
Boards/Categories/Content:Ok! Let's begin! First off, two words:
Category Splitter.
Your boards look like a big blob. Separate them.
Nextly, your boards and categories are a tad bit confusing. Why is it that your forum is about X-Men, yet you have a category entirely about Pirates of the Caribbean and one about Harry Potter?
If you want to include subjects in your forum and they are off theme, make one specific board (i.e. Non-X-Men Discussion) for them and include sub boards inside it with the things you'd like to allow discussion for. Don't put a bunch of boards like that on the main page. It annoys people. When they come to yoursite, they expect X-Men, not POTC and HP.
Ranking: 3/10
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GraphicsOk, I like how the banner is slightly animated. However, it is far too small. Though the animated kick is a nice extra, it's be best to place something like that in a welcome table instead of as the main banner.Find a bigger banner and use that.
The background nice, though it's sized incorrectly on my screen. It might be a good idea to resize the image to 1024x768 pixels and save it as a gif. That might work well.
You should also customize your own on/off icons.
Ranking: 6/10
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Coding:First off, resize your forum width to a smaller amount. The boards cover too much of the background and when your background has characters in it you don't want to do that.
Also, add a Welcome Table. Those are much more inviting and you can insert your current banner into that instead of where you have it. Welcome tables are good for explaining a bit about your site, saying hi to new members, and highlighting important info about your forum.
You might want to take a look at the codes around the web too and see if you can spruce up the look and workings a bit.
Ranking: 5/10
Skin:Black isn't always best.
I think you should keep the same general color scheme, but add some more shades of red, perhaps, to make the boards have more depth. Also, never make the board highlight color the same as the boards. People like to see that they've highlighted a board or thread. It adds to the interactive appeal of a site.
Ranking: 6/10
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Overall:I like what you have so far, but it's amateur at best when it comes to forum design. I think your forum has a good chance at being one of the top forums, as all forums have a chance at that.
However, you'll need to make some improvements (board improvements especially) to achieve that.
Nice work!
Ranking: 5/10
