I know a 9.5 review is suspicious. But I have my reasons.
"Blasphemer!" I can hear you say. Well, here are my arguments.
Many MMORPGs tout themselves as freeform and open experiences. None of them actually delivers that. I remember an ad for World of Warcraft where they said "Tired of killing rats? Enter World of Warcraft, where you are a true hero", or something like that. Sure, we don't kill rats on WoW. We kill tigers, imps and wolves. And if you look at it, deep inside, WoW is an extremely shallow "on rails" experience. You either quest or grind. Period. No other way to earn gold, or to earn experience. Quest. Grind. Sure, you may make and sell stuff. But where do you get the raw materials? Grind. Or quest. Plus, the classes, while very nicely drawn, they are very specific.
Anyhoo, I'm not writing this to bash WoW. WoW is a great game (spent one year chin deep on it) but EvE manages to outperform it on almost every aspect. Here's why.
EvE is the first MMORPG I've tried that offers a true open world experience. Want to quest? Go ahead. Wanna grind? Sure. Wanna mine? Be my guest. Want to PvP? Go get 'em tiger. All of this without any kind of experience restraints. There are PvP for everyone, and you are not subject to race and faction limitations. (For now: The Empyrean Age expansion offers faction wars). I hear you say "Then how the heck do you level up?" Easy. By time. You just put a skill to train and wait until it finishes. "Booooooring!!!" I hear you say. Maybe, until you realize a skill takes around 6 days to level up. "6 DAYS?!?!" I hear you say. Yup, even more sometimes. See, the cleverness of this system is that, even when in your character creation process you do choose a "class" (determined by ancestry and bloodline), this is more like an specialization. If you specialize in mining, you can still learn all the combat tree. Sure, it will take you time, but there is actually no limits to what your character can be. The only limit is imposed by time. And given the scale of time on EvE, is best to choose wisely than trying to level everything (one skill at a time per account, kids).
So, how about the money making? Sure, EvE has it's "grinding", only here is called mining, and even when it is as simple as finding a rock, firing your lasers, wait for cargo hold to fill and then coming back, I find it less tedious than searching for creeps to blast with your fireball. There are many different types of mineral, that yield different results after processing. You can become an ore entrepeneur, or you can use the minerals you mined to manufacture ships and a myriad other items (no silly grey-green-yellow-red items). Then you can sell them, or create contracts for raw materials for you to manufacture and viceversa (fulfill contracts yourself). This can get you on the economic race in a jiffy. If you don't feel like mining, you can engage in piracy or bounty hunting, which will net you some juicy profits if you are good enough, all of this without ever visiting a quest agent (though the tutorial agent is a must)
That last thing leads to the extremely steep learning curve. You see, EvE is a thinking man's MMORPG. You do not have direct control over your ship (only arrival points, speed and combat options) and everything is handled through window panes. However, is one of the most satisfying things to learn, and being able to start your first contract or learning to pilot a new type of ship feels way better than dinging on WoW.
Of course, in the technical aspect, this game is flawless. Not only does it run on Linux, Mac and PC, but it's also one of the most beautiful games out there. The backgrounds are simply gorgeous, and the amount of detail put into everything is just scary. When you realize that all the stars on your view are ACTUAL stars you can go to, the whole scale of the game reveals to you.
Is a very complete game, easy to learn but hard to dominate, which, if played with patience and calm, it can reward you with one of the best gaming experiences ever.