A short lived mmorpg experience ruined by flaws in the design and no innovation over previous games in the genre....
Gameplay:
Mmorpgs generally i feel are made for the person who wants a more indepth experience and can hold his attension for many years. I wont however say hardcore and casual because that determines how long you want to spend on the game yourself, WOW allows you to play very hardcore grinding raids for the best gear or honour. However when i was playing i got to 32 before i started getting abit bored of doing the same thing over and over again...... Go colllect quests kill 20 of this and return or deliver this and return, it's that or grind on 3000 mobs till you hit next level which is boring. Unfortunately if you do not like this then you wont like any mmorpg and find the genre very boring.
Once you get to level 10 the BG PVP will start however you'll be completly useless unless your the last level in the group stages which are 10 - 19 20 - 29 30 - 39 etc etc. Also Twinks where high level people transfer money to a lower level character and buys them the best gear so they can own honest lower level characters makes it unfun.
Once you get past the boredom from 40 - 60 or 70 now of doing the esact same of what you've been doing before hand, your end game will start. However the End game is the worst part of the game and you'll end up thinking why did i waste all this time to just get bored?
PVP end game battlegrounds are overflooded with afk'ers that are taking honour ruining it for everyone and unbalanced classes. Hunters seem to make up for 70% of the class population, it gets abit boring fighting them constantly.
Only other options are to do high level raids which take more of a hardcore player whose ready to dedicate 4/5 hours of their day and doing this constantly every week. It becomes boring doing the same raid over and over and you'll really start to wonder what else the game offers....
What does the game offer apart from this? Nothing.................. It's a pretty shallow RPG/MMO and i felt quite disappointed after all the hype its gotten.
Graphics:
Stunning and the Art is fantastic, however i'll have to mark it down for the tech side because it is quite dated. If you do not like the cartoony look of Warcraft however you wont be able to play the game.
Sound:
The music is very good but i find alot of the actual sounds reused and repetitive which gets very annyoing after a few hours.
Value:
Its standard for a mmorpg to have a monthly fee however i do not agree payign full price for a game and expansion when your paying the fee every month. End of the day if you like the EQ format of WOW then you'll probally like this game. If your into a deeper game with Crafting and player housing etc etc then you'll probally be quite bored. It's a all combat all action mmorpg with little for anyone else. Also just ebcause you like Warcraft doesn't mean you'll like WOW.
It's a good above average game but just doesn't hold my interest very long for a mmorpg. I can say however it's the most polished and bug free mmorpg i've ever played and Blizzard are evry good for that. The Customer service as usual for blizzard STINKS.