The experience World of Warcraft provides is so unique, engaging and fun, genre no longer has meaning.
I dove, and dove deep not surfacing until 18 months later. I came off that game (yes addiction is the appropriate verb) with 3 epic level 60's and a handful of mid-level alts to my name. There was a huge community I played an active role in; raiding, assisting newbs, managing people. I understood the market of the Auction House and profited handsomely. And I'm nothing out of the ordinary. My tale is average.
And that's my point. If you can invest that much time into a game and simply be average one of two things is true. First ... there's a hell of a lot of people playing the game, or second ... the game is deep enough for you to exist in to such a degree you're practically living a parallel digital existence. Either one is a pretty good indicator on how good a game it is.
So how does one encapsulate that into a few paragraphs of descriptive text with a tiny little number to accurately and objectively detail the quality of the game?
You can't. I only gave it a number because I didn't have a choice. :)
Do yourself a favor buy this game. It doesn't matter if you're an FPS, RTS, console gamer, or whatever other acronym used to describe you. The experience that World of Warcraft provides is so unique, engaging and fun, genre no longer has meaning.
It helps to have a decent system to enjoy all that is WoW. Although the engine runs great on older hardware, as you progress through the game and start making instance or raid runs, or just hang out in Ironforge there's so much going on the screen at any one time - it can bring a decent system to its knees. Memory is key here.
The control mechanism is easy to get into and it's customizable. Stick with the default UI interface. I don't recommend UI mods unless you have a special need in-game. Blizzard designed and optimized the game to be played without the need of modifications. Besides, keeping up with the versions and compatibility is a torture game in itself.
Play with friends if you can. If you're like me, and have no gamer friends, be social and open to random encounters in-game. That's what makes this game so fun. That's why I stuck with it for so long. It's a big world and you can interact with literally thousands of players at any one time. Especially if you befriend a few of them ... that can lead to a lifetime of fun in the game.
The only reason I'm not giving WoW a higher score has a lot to do with the end-game material. It's geared towards hard-core players who enjoy repeated instance and raid runs requiring a lot of organization and patience. Patience to do the same content over and over again for very little return. Trust me, you'll enjoy the game until 60 - at which you'll need to dedicate even more time to see better returns. It really saps the excitement and enjoyment you initially get out of the game.
In the end, There's really not much for the solo player. All the epic gear (which defines your character) require high level instance runs which can be detrimental to your constitution if the pick-up group you're taking into the dungeon doesn't know their asses from their hands. A little frustrating when you spend 30 minutes assembling a group only to see it wipe multiple times and the repair bill on your equipment saps your bank stash with nothing to show for it.
That said ...
A classic game, totally accessible, constantly evolving, beautiful to look and and hear and a treat to the senses.