I'm beginning to wonder when they're going to start releasing more features... I'm beginning to think that the game itself is woefully underdeveloped...
Here's why. The game, to me, has three aspects:
1) Catching/evolving/hatching pokemon (gotta collect 'em all).
2) Powering up pokemon for battles.
3) Battling pokemon (and holding gyms).
But it seems to me that none of these have yet had much "social" interaction. There's really almost no way to interact with other players through the game.
And battling and holding gyms seems to be a relatively weak and slow way to improve your pokemon. The XP gained from winning gym battles is nothing compared to pidgey stacking with a lucky egg. And around me, holding a gym after you beat it looks nearly impossible. Most of the gyms I see trade teams multiple times a day.
So right now I'm dutifully trying to build up my pokemon so that at some point my son can make a decent run at battling a gym. Which is hard to do when the best thing he's got are CP of 1618, 1178, and 1035, and you see a gym with a 1800 Vaporeon, 2300 Snorlax and 2800 Dragonite sitting there. So it's just a grind through the endless ratatas and pidgeys to get enough stardust and candy to power up my good pokemon and level up. But why? Just to go through a billion revive and potion to capture a gym and then have it taken away an hour later? What's the point?
At some point they're sure to start rolling out some of the more social features that MUST be in planning. But will they get around to it before I get bored? I'm almost there. Will they do so before my son gets bored? He's only 9, but eventually he'll start getting tired of catching them for no real purpose, I assume.