For the right type of gamer, this is the best mmo out there. This game eats up whiney babies for breakfast.
The game is spreading for a reason.
The game is incredibly deep in terms of level cap experience, class abilities, and pvp experience. This means of course that there are some consequences in order to achieve the depth of the gameplay. You cannot get there over night, and you cannot get to the very end of the game over 30 nights. This game takes a lot more for you to put into it. The grind is what will - and is - making all the other reviewers and gamers complain, because they can't handle playing for a week or two not being super 'uber.' What they don't understand, is that from levels 1-30, (until your first class change) its best for you to solo to raise your skills and abilities, and from 30-50 (through your second class change) you party, explore, and adventure way more than you do at the start of the game.
So, for the players who decide to commit to the game for more than all the babies who played for a day and quit early, a reward will come in the form of being more uber, and diving into more fun gameplay than any other mmo out there. The 3 way race war battle that occurs is exciting, the characters and graphics look great, (something about driving a mech around, and bashing an elf equipped great sword, just doesn't get old) and the replay value is good considering theres varied styles of game plays within the 3 races you can try. (granted, you will have to progress through the grind again, but even that is something that if skillfully done will make your character better. Theres a right way and wrong way to grind in this game and ill leave it to you to figure it out when you try it)
As far as pvp is concerned, this is a team oriented pvp game. It's rare for you to solo any other player your own level because of the ability to heal your self with potions that only have a 3 second delay. That forces players to use team work, and cordinate focus firing, close formations, etc. To win a chip war (the focus of the game, race vs race vs race) Often times your entire race will group up under the guidance of the race leaders (the top 5 pvpers of your race,) And mass charge one of the enemies chips. If you run into the other race head on, thats a usually a 50 v 50, depending on how many people are high enough to participate, or on at that time, with no lag. Don't forget the 3rd race could creap in on you from the back, making it 150 total players in action. In what other game can you participate in a pvp battle of what size? Keep in mind 50 players for each race in the war is just an arbitrary number im using, the number could go way up, or way down depending on how big your server is, so your chip wars might be smaller and use more guirella tactics, while the biggest servers would have an immense number of players.
With all that in mind, let's finish and recap with what makes RFO an outstanding game, and why some gamers will never get to see it.
Pros:
-3 races to choose from, that all have different play style and class depth.
-3 race war pvp, neutral zone pvp, or guild pvp,. (it takes only about a weeks worth of play to help out in the first 2. a little longer to get enough friends to set up a guild because of money costs and level requirements)
-Great graphics, that don't hog your system (the min specs are pretty low for this game) and very little if any lag, even in huge battles with hundreds of charcaters. (just dont use 56k)
-Deep multiclassing
Cons:
-The grind. Everyone knows its not easy. So if you just go into it with that mentaility, you'll be fine. Lots of WOW players tried this game out, for half a day, and quit because they couldn't take it. The game will not be spoon fed to anyone, you have to earn what you get. I actually think the grind in FFXI is harder, because in that game you can't do anything without 5 other players to party with. In rfo, you can solo level up, or party level up.
-The grind x2 if you want to reroll your character.
-Race leaders (who give the orders for chip wars) can end up being idiots, but that could just be motivation for you to become one yourself.