I'll make this objective as I can. I'm a fan of WoW, and I've played it since closed beta. Compared to
other MMORPGs, it's probably the best fantasy-based MMORPG in the industry. It has the most "real" quests and storylines ever seen in a mainstream MMORPG (especially compared to the garbage, artificial quests of games like City of Heroes and EverQuest.)
The graphics are unusual at first, but they're actually quite good. To be honest, it took me a while to get used to the unique style of WoW's graphics. But I'd rather have the fantasy, somewhat abstract looking scene than "just another pseudo-photorealistic/CG rendered" world. If your video card can handle it, I suggest playing at maxed out settings at a good resolution--it makes for a nice world. I play on maxed settings at 1152x864 resolution, because having the same reso. as the desktop makes alt tabbing instant--the screen doesn't have to resize. Seeing as how I PVP a lot, especially moreso since most of my chars. are 60, being able to play at a good framerate when there's 60 people on the screen all firing away with their spells is pretty important. Some people will tell you that you don't need that good a computer to play WoW--which is true, but if you want to PvP on a large scale, and with high settings, you're going to need a modern video card and lots of RAM.
Class-wise, I'm pretty satisfied. I wish they'd started with more than the original 8 classes, but I'm glad that they're all pretty different from each other. Some people complain that some classes are better than others in PVP, which is false and true. Of course on a 1vs1 basis, every class is going to have strengths and weaknesses. Blizzard says they designed it with a "Paper-Rock-Scissors" type of gameplay, so a group of 5 people (assuming it's not 5 of one class) is just as balanced as any other, and as any real PVPer will tell you, it's very rare to go 1on1 in a large battlefield.
My biggest problem with the 'classes' is that there are really only 3 roles in battle, like most games. Healer, Tanker, Damage-Dealer. The Hybrid classes (Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Paladin, Warlock) are able to fulfill unique roles by themselves and in low-level groups. However, at high-levels they're forced from the "fourth role: Hybrid" into the role they do best. For example, a Druid goes from having the versatility of tanking in bear-form, doing damage in cat-form or damage/healing in caster-form, to being pretty much a Healer. You won't really see Druids using forms in Molten Core or against Krazzak/Azuregos/Onyxia/etc. They're as good Healers as Priests(about 95% as good), so it's a good fit, but they lose their versatility. Shaman are usually forced into either healing (which they can't do nearly as well as a Primary Healer like a Druid/Priest) or damage-dealing role. Hunters are almost exclusively unwanted in high-level instances, at least on the servers I play, which is unfortunate. Warlocks probably have the least "class-defined" role of all. They're called "Debuffers" but they can't really debuff--and they're nearly useless in a raid dungeon like Molten Core because mobs have a debuff limit of 8, and their curses/debuffs get over-written by other players. Blizzard is adding 'Hero Classes' in the future--which people speculate will be something like the WC3 classes. Like, a Night Elf Druid becoming a 'Keeper of the Grove,' while a Tauren Druid would become a 'Keeper of the Plains.' And possibly add the "super moves" from WC3--like Force of Nature(summoning of treants), etc.
Music-wise.. Meh. WoW has some good songs, and I got the soundtrack with my Collector's Edition, but doesn't stop me from turning off the music and listening to my own MP3s. Overall, the sound quality for the effects is pretty good, and you'll hear many sounds from WC3 which add to the immersion in the Universe.
Gameplay wise, WoW is pretty fun. I enjoy high-level PVP and raid instances a lot more than the initial questing levels. A second, better, game begins at level 55+. PVP can be both fun or incredibly frustrating.
I both like and dislike the crafting system. It's possible to make some awesome stuff with your professions (I'm a Master Hammersmith, and Enchanter, myself) and make quite a bit of money. However.. in both a bad and good way, recipes for your profession-made items require things from other professions, which makes you rely on other people, who may rip you off if the items are in high demand, like real life. My biggest problem with the crafting system is that Crafted Items are never worth as much as you could get for each individual component that makes the item--say I wanted to make an awesome hammer, and sell it. Say, a Hammer of the Titans. (
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=26354) I'd need 50 thorium, which I could sell for 10~15 gold. -15 Arcanite-, which I could easily sell for 25 gold EACH (375 for 15), 4 guardian stones for about 20~25 gold, 6 enchanted leather(relatively easy to get) and ten essences of earth(pretty rare drop, assorted mobs)--probably 50+ gold for all of them. So how much is that all together? Probably about 450ish gold. How much could I actually get for the Hammer on the AH? Half that if I was lucky, -I might- be able to sell it at cost if I sold it in Gadgetzan on the neutral AH. I'm speaking from the economy of Earthen Ring, one of the higher population RP realms. We have a pretty low population of chinese gold farmers (and thus, newbs who buy loads of gold from them), and our economy is pretty stable. Every realm is different.
My biggest 'problems' with WoW are the amount of love that has gone into making the characters and realms. The Alliance races--especially the Night Elves--have been given more attention when it comes to character models, environments, fighting and spell animations, emotes, etc--so much that it's sad. As a result, you see--almost exclusively--night elves, and Human Paladins running around. The Horde side is pretty balanced, with a preference toward Undead and Tauren. Trolls are medium, and nearly nobody plays Orcs. Again, I speak from the Earthen Ring context--your server may be different. I also don't like how "biased" some of the high-level instances are toward certain classes' loot. For instance, Upper Blackrock Spire drops almost exclusively warrior and paladin garbage, but the other classes are forced to go there for their almost non-existant rare drops. Dire Maul, one of the new instances, equally leans toward the Magic-casting classes.
As other people have said before, WoW doesn't really do a whole lot that is "completley new, and innovative"--but what it did/does do, is take all the basics from it's predecessors and polish them to a shine, so that in comparison, it's leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. Sony based an ad campaign revolving around how 'proud' they were that they had 300,000 subscribers, while WoW has over 1,500,000. It's pretty sad that the sequel to the most revered/vilified MMORPG that started it all has only 20% of the subscribers that a company, Blizzard--who has never made a MMORPG before--has.
Sure, there are some features that I'd like added--like the ability to buy/build Houses or property, the return of Druid's crowform, etc--but Battlegrounds and Hero classes are being added in the future, which is enough to keep me playing for awhile longer.
Overall, I'd give World of Warcraft an 8/10--much better than I give most. By comparison, I'd give EQ2 a 3/10, City of Heroes a 5/10, and EVE Online a 6/10.
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