Too early for the true review, don't count in the naysayers. We're building up for a great game, it's all there.
I believe Gamespot reviewers have the right answer, experience, then review. There have been many reviews in the first weeks of release, some great and others an assault on character. None of these reviews have really given the game time to sink in to distinguish the game's true rating. Well I won't fall into hypocrisy, so instead I'm going to fairly weigh what can be reviewed.
The Review:
The Warhammer universe is vast and nearly unrivaled in its back story, en regard to mass of literature. The Black Library has given the developers of Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning a lot to work with as well as much more to stand up to. WAR does deliver with a great and rich story; however this alone doesn't necessarily make a great game. Game-play is what really drives a game to greatness or buries it in failure.
The controls are solid; of course these are the same controls across the majority of games in its class. The controls go hand in hand with the user interface, which again we don't really get anything new here. You are however able to resize and move every item on the interface. As a whole the interface is pretty much on the spot, my only gripes with it lie in the guild window. It is a bit cumbersome to manage allied guilds. Though this is a minor issue and overall, controls and interface are for the most part solid. "But how does the game play?" Well at the time that this was written the game play is with no better word, fun. Taking the player vs. environment, the game only rises above the bar by a hair. Everything you've grown to love AND hate about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG or MMO for those not living under a rock). You run around take up quests, go kill things, gather items, and talk to people all in the name of the lazy NPCs (non-player characters). However strangely this is where the game rises above with its PQ, the strangely addictive Public Quest. Quests that range from three to seven stages involving anyone that happens to wonder by the semi-large area it takes place in. For the most part you don't have to wander the vast world to find them, your old school quests will eventually take you there. There are a handful that are out of the way, but finding them can be very rewarding. The looting system set in place for these large quests is rather intuitive and based on your contribution to the effort, giving you items that cannot be found anywhere else. Not only do you get a nice reward in items, but you also get an achievement for find the hidden PQ which gets stored in your tome of knowledge. Strangely the tome of knowledge does rise as a game of its own. In WAR you receive achievements for practically anything you do and collecting them is half the fun. In example of an achievement, click on yourself 100 times and receive the title "Ow My Eye!" or get resurrected 100 times and get "The Reborn." You not only receive titles, you'll receive a compendium of story added to your tome. This is all fine, but the game isn't without its failures. Your NPC enemies aren't very responsive, you could shoot one standing right next his friend (I assume) talking (about who knows what) and that shot enemy will run to you and attack. His friend though will just stand there and keep talking to the place where his friend was. The AI just leaves a lot to be desired; in fact it's just not there.
What better AI is there than AI (Actual Intelligence), well we'll assume other people are intelligent at least to some degree. Player vs. player, PvP or as Mythic Ent. has coined RvR, realm vs realm is where the game really wins one over. The RvR is split up into two categories Scenarios and open RvR. Scenarios are instanced environments which you can join in by simply clicking an icon by your mini-map. These are limited battles with common goals for both sides, i.e. capture the flag, capture and control, keep the artifact, etc. These games are fun short games, pitting you against your rivaling faction. Scenarios aside, you'll also be able to participate in open RvR where you and hundreds upon hundreds of your fellow faction players will be able to wage war against your enemy, take forts, keeps, cannons, etc. Your efforts are not in vain, the victories in these small battles will add to the overall war allowing for invasions of the capital cities.
The experiences I've had thus far have been for the most part great. The game has delivered with its story, solid controls, great audio effects, special effects, and great RvR. The issues are small and don't really hinder the experience too much. Such flaws; long queue times having to wait to actually play the game depending on your server's population, poor PvE AI, at times Scenarios can be laggy, and few options in crafting professions. Overall the experience has been great, the good does out weigh the bad.