1. Project Concept or Idea- what stands out with the project? is it another 'payment' coin with no additional innovation or something mind-blowing
2. Team -A great project will not succeed without a great team, proven expertise and integrity, you may need to use "reverse google image" to ascertain if they are real
3. Board of Advisers - Great projects usually do not fall from the skies, there is usually some build-up to it,and involves respectable personalities giving some guidance to the project
4. White Paper - If the white paper is bad or plagiarized, there is really nothing to work on.
5. Feasible plan- Is it a plan that can be implemented, not just on paper
6. Website- should not be crappy ,great projects have nice and easy-to-use website loaded with information about projects, no malicious links
7. Marketing and Promotions - Project must have a good reach and publicity, usually reflected in social media activities
8. Legal Compliance - There should be enough legal back for he project, no restrictions or government regulations against it
9. Code Security - Ideally should be public and safe ,without bugs
10. Token Issuance and distribution - Fair distribution to teams members, advisers, community, reserve etc.
A good project will score high in all these fronts.
Please add your own views
Yeah I always check that before joining the ICO and I agree with you. If you want to invest in ICO, you must research carefully because we all dont want our money/our investation disappear. so i rather spend a lot of time to do the research about the ICO before joining them. ICO is needed exactly cause from new coin/tokens sometimes we can have a new technology, new idea or new improvement than the old coin/token ever have.