Yes the tokens are real! It's also true there hasn't been widespread distribution since summer, apart from Sparta Supporters receiving their 1 SPARTA for supporting the project at the end of October this year. As admin has previously stated, there is more importance of growing the forum by popularity, usage and interest, as well as SPARTA and associated projects, in order to provide real value to ALTS tokens, as opposed to merely further distributing. As distribution on it's own doesn't add value.
Don't forget that your points are 10:1 ratio of ALTS, so you don't need to to have it in your MEW to be holding ALTS on the platform. No doubt over time with growth of the forum thanks to growth of the crypto & altcoin space, these tokens will begin to find real value, with further distribution of tokens expected.