The problem isn't the Rifts going out slower than expected - it was the dead silences that customers who preordered received. The entire mess was handled poorly and could have easily been avoided.
It's called communication, Oculus. It's why so many people cancelled and went to the Vive. I'm still waiting for my Rift but the only delay that ticked me off was the one where we didn't get a status update.
The main issue with the game for me (having played it twice as long as Kevin - welcome back, btw) is the "soft-cap" of level 50. Let me explain, that doesn't mean the level cap is 50... it's actually several levels above that.
What it means is that once you hit level 50, the leveling hits a wall that only those without lives and/or jobs can surpass. And they do. Those players that devote their lives to the game are able to steamroll entire guilds with their godlike stat advantages. So, while the first 50 levels are genuinely fun and rewarding - unless you have nothing better to do with your life than devote it to one video game, it's time to move on or face "that which has no life". And that's coming from a guy that spends all his free time playing MMO's.
Subscriptions are the best way to go. It puts everybody on equal footing. Games like Wildstar combine the worst elements of both systems... the fact that you can buy ingame currency goes against what makes subscriptions great. It's pay to win.
The multiplayer feels too shallow and too money-hungry to be anything more than what it is. It's just a cash-grab. Luckily, the single player is solid.
Tripwolf's comments