I had reservations about the game, but I started playing for social reasons because a couple of friends acquired it and they didn't wish to play anything else. Apart from being buggy and very poorly optimised, it doesn't seem inferior to most MMOs. It is about as addictive as other games of the genre that I played, and about as silly.
It's a relatively free-form game for its genre, addressing several annoying issues that I saw in Everquest clones. There are no level limits on quests, so you can go realistically do quests 20 levels above your own if you so desire. Pity that there is still this inane division into areas of different levels, and you are expected to 'complete' them, but it's easy to skip content and pick your own pace. At least you get many skill points from exploration rather than levelling, so two characters of the same level may have vastly different power. There is considerable freedom in customising characters, so your 'sorcerer' may be a tank, and your tank can sneak quite well.
So far, exploration was the most pleasing element. There are few invisible walls, and sometimes the shortcuts are amusing. I liked sneaking around with the added benefit of taking high-level chests. Questing alone or with a friend was also good; though the combat is not challenging unless you take on quests above your level. Considering all the complaints about high difficulty I saw at the forums, I am quite pleased that my melee Nightblade can easily take on bosses alone - I imagine it will change later on. As for balance issues discussed above, I would be quite happy to play a class that is not well-regarded and squeezing something out of it, even if I cannot compete with 'elite' players. The combat system itself is all right for small-scale battles, but gets too hectic elsewhere, especially with the slight lag. Though, frankly, all battles in all MMOs with over 4 people in them looked like a flash bang.
Most of the issues of organisation were well-designed. Say, I'm glad there is no auction house, so you can actually play around with prices. The unified servers are a great thing, even if there is a lack of interaction between players. Too bad they still went with two instead of one. I like the fact that instead of 50 local games, there are just two actual worlds, and they are always densely populated. Unified servers seem like an important requirement if the game is to have a social history, like EVE or Cybernations.
It is a pity that they didn't just make a large Skyrim with many players in it, but had to bring the system more in line with the standards of this benighted genre. TES games always felt like they would make decent MMOs, even if they were bland on their own. But who would have expected serious innovation from an AAA title?
I must say that the reactions to multiplayer games often seem odd. Say, Path of Exile was widely praised, even if its only good aspect was the skill system, while the gameplay was brain-dead. WoW is also well-loved, even though at the time it was a huge step back compared to Ultima Online or SWG. Everquest 2 gets good publicity, while SWTOR gets very bad publicity, even though the gameplay is roughly the same. I suppose it's a good thing that people are getting hostile about this genre that just keeps replicating Everquest for a decade and a half, but it got stale a long time ago, and the disappointed cries appear almost random.
Personally lost any interest in the game when they showed the Oblibion style Medieval for casuals Cyroddil and BSB Summer-set isles. Got lot fun out of 
crowd though; how much they payed for this turd? 70 Zionbux for box + 20 for fist two months?
