Recent searches for brown dwarfs have succeeded in finding these elusive objects. Massive brown dwarfs (40-70 Jupiter masses) have been found in the Pleiades, orbiting around a nearby star and, very recently, in the field. A review is given of their observed photometric and spectroscopic properties in the optical and near-infrared. The diagnosis of substellar nature based on lithium lines and methane bands is discussed in detail. While lithium has proved useful to test brown dwarfs with effective temperatures hotter than ~1600 K, methane is a substellar indicator at lower temperatures.