Warhammer Online manages to fix quirks in other games that you never even noticed before and makes for an enjoyable MMO.
Instead of describing the unique character classes and going through the initial selection, I am going to get right to the point (assuming you know the classes already) and tell you how the game actually plays. The Warhammer world map is separated into three different areas for the factions fighting each other (empire v.s. chaos, Dwarfs v.s. Greenskins, High elves v.s. Dark elves). This would map roughly shows you where the factions are battling, but it doesn't give you a sense of a truely connected world. What i mean is that you won't see on the world map the towns or roads that connect the battling factions, all the world map does is show you where the battles (in theory) are going on. This is kind of handy if you don't know the lore, but other than that this map only needs a single glance and then is expendible. Fortunately, their are two other maps that give you an idea of where you are, one that shows your particular set of "tiers" (which are areas of combat ordered from left to right and roughly levels 1-10, 11-20, etc.) and one that shows your position in your local tier. These are nice, but once again it doesn't give you any kind of idea of how your set of tiers is connected to rivaling factions besides the world map, and this can be initially confusing.
I think this forces me to say that really my major problem with the game so far has been the lack of a coherant game world. Every tier has a loading screen (which is an average of every ten levels), which makes it nice considering you don't really have to instance into a new area too much (only 3 times in theory moving left to right if you never went backward). I find that the game is pretty nice in this sense, but still i wished i had more of an idea of how all three "battle areas" connected. On a good note though, every time you go to a flight master you never have to wait to get to your new area while watching yourself fly from one area to another, since it's instanced, you simply see yourself flying off in a gyrocopter and then appear in the town you selected after a short loading screen. Like stated before, the world map was my main issue, but in that it is a relatively minor one and the local maps do such a good job that you know where you are in your set of tiers anyway, which is all you really need to know.
On to combat though. Besides the differences between the classes, each of them still plays just like any other mmo if you've played one before (besides age of conan). You select a skill and the character automatically acts it out for you. It may not be new, but really i never felt annoyed by the combat and the system doesn't feel broken or dull at all, so why fix it? In that way the combat seems to slip under my radar and I take it for granted, something that i guess should be taken for good in an MMO.
By far though, it's the way that you use this combat that really makes this game shine. Never have I had so many options for leveling as I do in Warhammer Online. I find it nice that instead of simply going into an area and grinding either monsters or quests i have the ability to do some other things like participating in public quests or completing things in the tome of knowledge. I've always been one for little things to occupy my time with and the Tome of Knowledge is like a candy factory for me in that sense. Sure, its easy to ignore the Tome most of the time (unless you randomly get an achievement, which believe me happens a lot). But if you decide to sit down and analyze it you will find that the tome is deep with extra things to do and should give any person who's easily bored something to do if they run out of quests in an area.
On to the public quests though. These things are fun but i found myself using them not as a nice fallback if i don't have anything to do (like the tome), but more as a thing i do when i want to grind gear after i enter a new area. You have three tiers in the "influence" bar, (basic, advanced, and elite) and every time you kill a monster in a public quest you gain influence points and eventually fill up your influence bar to one of the three (what are) diamonds on the bar. For an extremely quick run down, basic usually gets you a potion, advanced gets you a higher level armor piece, and elite gets you a piece of magical armor (in general). Like stated before, I used public quests as a way to get good armor upon entering a new area, but i never found myself returning to the public quests after that unless one of my regular quests told me to, although they were fun when i participated.
Speaking of quests, I think it's really important to mention here, if short, that i really enjoyed the party creation system in this game. Gone are the days that you have to sit around asking if anyone can help you with a quest. Upon entering an area you can simply open up the social tab and look at the groups in your area to join one. I found this very helpful when most of my time in other games seemed to be spent typing "lfg". It may seem very simple, but it keeps the pace going in a game that should be all about going out there and smashing orcs or dwarfs into oblivion without much pause in-between.
That brings me to grouping for pvp, and normally here i would go into a description of pvp in this game, but quite frankly, i'm not a pvp person. I've participated in RvR combat when i happened to walk into an area with it for a quest, and i have had fun killing one dark elf i came across, but other than that my experience with PvP in this game has been very limited although it seemed balanced. What i think this says in the end though is that Warhammer Online really is a game for everyone. Never do i find myself in PvE running out of things to do even in a game that's based on war and rivalling factions. It's also worth noting that completing quests, participating in public quests, and completing tome unlocks all contribute to the overall progress my faction is making in the war. So, even if i don't feel like i want to go against other players, i can still feel like i'm contributing to the war effort.
In closing, Warhammer Online is not necessarily too much different from other games in the genre as far as combat and presentation goes, but it does do a lot of things different that makes it just one step above everyone else. It may not be perfect right now but at least it's been stable at launch. With the promise of more capital cities and overall more things to do, I would think you'd be hard pressed not to love Warhammer Online for years to come if your tired of the other games in the genre. Simply put, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a fun game, and it's a fresh diversion into a different fantasy that everyone should try if not get hooked on like i have.