For me the game is as much about the social aspect as the high end content.

I have been lucky in that I have found a good guild of friends that I get along with and enjoy playing the game with. Heck even if we aren't in an instance or PvP it's good fun just to sit around and chat about Chuck Norris :P (WoW joke sorry!)

I would say that 10 days is enough to get you to level 20 and for you to decide if you like the game, I would say to you however that you shouldn't just pick aspecifictypeand run with it, try them all out and see which one best suits you. In your first day you could probably get one of each and level them all to level 5 and see which one is the most fun, then run with that one to level 20.

For me on a personal level the game took a HUGE nosedive after the release of The Burning Crusade expansion, far too much reputation grinding for items and not enough fun involved any more. Seems the game is more geared towards the people who are willing (And able!!) to spend large chunks of their time to keep their character going. Not for the casual person like myself who logs on for a couple of hours a night.

So my final advice would be to try everything, see which you prefer and if you stick with it, find a good guild to chat to and keep you laughing. Oh and avoid Paladin's I have a level 70 one as my main and after level 40ish we suck and killing anything solo!!

Man, I can remember playing through FFVII for the first time and it taking me best part ot 60 hours, and then there was Half Life which took me weeks.

I agree on one principle that playing games on a harder difficulty makes the games last slightly longer, but that's only because you keep dying and having to do the same thing over and over.

Take Gears of War for example (Not a PC game I know) but that had great graphics and good game play (Running for cover anyone?!?) but it was finished faster than a burger infront of a fat man. It's crazy, thankfully I only loaned that from my friend!

But like someone said, since the release of Halo everyone seens to be going 'showy' on us and making graphics the main concern and the gameplay to lag behind.

Bring back the EPIC games, the ones that took us eons to play through, even tho you know it's and industry made for making money, if they can tie you up in one game for 10-15 hours and release another one just like it 1 - 2 months later they can double their money, much more so than getting you to play Deux Ex for 40+ hours and you not need another game for 3 - 4 months.

Because they have seen how much money can be made from this industry they are squeezing as much money out of it as possible, which is also why you see so many underdeveloped, regurgitated repetitive slop coming from some developers now.

Anyway, I'll stop there before I bore you all to death =P

Kinda new round here but here's my take on it...

Mech Warrior 5 (4 got me started in online gaming)

Solder of Fortune 3

Diablo 3

Homeworld 3

Well that's my take anyway =P