The problem with the game is it's hardly an MMO. Even in the busiest parts of the gameworld you're bound to meet a maximum of ten or twelve people. There is literally no reason to play a game where you don't even run into that many other players while you're questing. It defeats the whole purpose of playing an MMO. When I played in the newbie areas, there were maybe 2-3 other pople I could see on the screen -- at most -- it was far more common to see zero people while going about my business making combat numbers float on screen.
There are three critical flaws with SWTOR:
1. Engine: The engine was designed by retards. There are critical flaws in the way textures are streamed, input is processed, etc. The engine sucks so much is the reason why there's hardly ever anymore than ten people on screen at once, because the game was probably designed around its limitations and heavily instances areas of the game so you seldom interact with others.
2. Budgeting: They wasted way too much money on voice acting. Voice acting is like icing on a cake. If you made a shit cake, it doesn't make a shit cake taste any better, it just tastes like sugary shit. Case in point, VTMB would be a less memorable game w/o its voice acting. The problem with SWTOR is they paid for so much stupid vapid dialogue when that money could have been better spent on the engine or the gameplay or the art or hell providing more than black/white choices to every quest.
3. Gameplay: It's WoW. Now, that's maybe not much of an argument these days, but even among themepark MMOs, there are various ways you can present the game world and available options to the player. In this case, the game is WoW, and even someone like me who doesn't want to play WoW, the mechanics here inevitably draw comparison. WoW is much more polished and pleasant than SWTOR. It's this direct comparison you're making subconsciously in the back of your mind that hurts it - the gameworld feels more plastic, the character progression feels more stitled, and you rapidly begin to doubt your purpose playing the game, unlike you might've nearly a decade ago in WoW.
SWTOR is bad, but it's not as bad as your average korean MMO, but then again, your average korean mmo at least has a gimmicky mechanic or something to pull your interest along. Here, all there is as the hook is VO, which you'll get sick of very quickly.
