Well polished but it does nothing new for the genre and veterans of previous mmorpgs will probably get bored fast.
WOW is probably the most polished and bug free mmorpg i've ever played however and Blizzard did set a new standard with this. Also it has such a great seemless world which is very large and beautiful. Most mmorpgs out there have alot of zoning which kills the game as it doesn't feel like a world then, so Blizzard did a good job here too.
I love the classes in WOW too with eachother being sooo different from eachother and unique and they're all fun to play and well made. Most class based mmorpgs just try to go for "we'll create 24 unbalanced and bland/boring classes" and that makes them no fun. So WOW has the classes done perfectly IMO with my own personal fave being Shadow spec Priest. Only problem is i don't really like classes in mmorpgs and i prefer to make my own one like SWG used to offer so in a weird way it's a upside and downside.
Really after these 3 points WOW really just had nothing else to offer...
Cons:
- Grind Grind Grind.
- Fed ex quests or kill quests are just all the same and boring so the quests in the game arn't as good as say EQ2.
- Character customization lacks with everyone looking the same.
- No player housing.
- No real player economy in the game.
- No real crafting in the game, what they have in place is very lackluster.
- PVP is very repetitive and boring because theres no risk involved, it's all reward and no death pen.
- Draw Distance and Viewing distance are both very poor with things just popping up on you.
etc etc.
I'm going to leave it there and say the problem with WOW is all you do is grind to end level to be able to play with everyone else and be able to play the proper PVP game. This is where levels are flawed in a mmorpg because a mmorpg should have no end game. Also onces you've spent the whole boring time grinding you soon realise theres nothing to do at end game and you have 2 choices...
Raiding the same instances over and over again or fighting the the same PVP Battlegrounds over and over again because you need better gear. And WOW is all about no skill but just the gear your in really. Once you have all the best gear then whats the point in playing anymore? Theres no risk what so ever so you can't lose anything and thats very very boring.
You soon realise grinding was the most fun thing about the game and what does that say about the current state of mmorpgs, because they're all like this and grinding is more like work and not fun.
The graphics while not the most polygons you've ever seen in a mmorpg do look really nice because Blizzard have done a fantastic job on the artwork. Also while the sound effects are pretty standard the music is fantastic and right up there.
So overall WOW is one of the best mmorpgs but that just speaks for the lackluster genre really, doesn't mean it's a good game.....