If you don't like MMORPGs, you probably wont like this game

World of Warcraft is intended to be an MMORPG that gets rid of many critical flaws of other MMORPGS, but I find the game to be unplayable, much as I find any MMORPG. I played the game throughout the beta test and upon release.

GAMEPLAY (1 out of 10)
Firstly, I'll review gameplay from my own taste, but recognizing the fact that I haven't previously liked any other MMORPG, I'll attempt to more objectively evaluate the merits of WOW compared to competing MMORPG's:

First of all, thank God that this game doesn't have an awkward tutorial like Everquest 1 or 2. I was able to immediately get into the game, create my character, and start running around. Immediately however I run into the problem that I observe in all other mmorpgs, fighting random, weak, and solo badguys (called "mobs" in mmorpg terminology). The fact of the mater is, that this, in and of itself, is completely non fun. All mmorpgs share this mistake. They assume that people will recognize that later on one can gain strength and fight epic battles and actually use strategy or reflexes, but the fact of the matter is you have to get to that level by doing activity that I can't imagine anyone having fun doing. Im biased against the RPG gameplay form, but even in Warcraft 3 fighting creeps was more fun, at least there was always large groups of them and there was lots of things going on with spells and debuffs. There is no reason why this couldn't happen at an early level in an MMORPG, especially with the style of netcode that they use.

The main innovation or focus of WOW, is instead of always fighting random roaming bad guys to gain levels, you can also talk to townspeople to get "quests", which can be completed to gain levels and items. "Quests" however, for most of the first levels, are nothing more then being told to go to a specific place on the land to fight like ten roaming monsters. Now to me, this system is worse then just fighting random roaming monsters, because:
*It often doesn't seem to solve the "camping" problem that it was designed to stop. The "camping" problem is when there are a bunch of players waiting for a monster they need to kill to enter the world again. Quests are supposedly designed to seperate out players to avoid this problem but this is not very effective.
*The quest system involves what I call "maze" gameplay, essentially gameplay where you are forced to find your way to a specific place. This is called "exploration" gameplay by supporters, but to me it is more like a "maze" because most often the places all look alike and look boring. It takes a while to find the place unless you ask in the chatroom (an element that ruins the immersion for me and feels like cheating). Not only do you have to find the place, but then you must find your way back to the specific townsperson hiding somewhere in some building who originally gave you the quest to find your reward. If it was just fighting random monsters, I would be motivated to explore to see the world and new eye candy. I also could be motivated to explore to hunt certain animals or gather resources as part of a trade system. But the system of forced exploration inherent in the quest system is a big downside to me.

Many of these problems would be mitigated by a larger or total use of instance dungeons, which are essentially "private dungeons" analogous to the "underworld levels" in the Legend of Zelda. But these don't occour untill you are higher in level. By that time I was largely turned off by the gameplay. I'd rather them focus on the leveling segment entirely by instance dungeons, and the "endgame" (the state of the game when your character is completely leveled up) revolve around faction vs. faction fighting.

Now let me discuss the game from the perspective of those who do like existing MMORPG games. WOW has a much less steep learning curve, and can certainly feel like much less of a grind then other mmorpgs. Combined with the great graphics and warcraft universe storyline, most mmorpg gamers were looking to the game to be the best mmorpg to date. I need to warn you though about the way Blizzard has handled and will probably continue to handle the gameplay (as MMORPGS all constantly evolve so its important to look at developer's patterns):

*Blizzard has a history of "nerfing" things that are overpowered, but unique, to the point where they lose their uniqueness. Take for example a purely hypothetical situation about the hunter's guns in the game. The gun's, which instantly hit their target at a long distance upon being shot, are considered too powerful. Blizzard would, instead of weakening their damage, change them so that they fire a visible and slow moving projectile. In other words, from a gameplay mechanics standpoint, guns are no longer strategically different from bows and arrows. This type of nerfing makes the game more one dimensional, and Blizzard is notorious for that. Blizzard seems to have a belief that if something general is overpowered, such as a race, that if they tweak a bunch of small attributes somehow everything will magically work.
*Before release Blizzard put in this "decay" process, whereby as you use your weapons and armor they decay to the point of usefullness and have to be repaired, costing money. This was put in as a "moneysink" to avoid inflation. When first implimented however, it obviously effected primarily warriors and other classes which primarily use weapons and armor, and less effected magic users. This example highlights many possible problems with Blizzard: 1. They unbelievably didn't have the forsight to imagine how this change would be biased towards magic users. 2. Instead of creating a money sink that was fun or adds to the game, such as gambling or player built housing, they do a very "fun disruptive" thing like decay. I make these points to let MMORPG fans know what types of things they might expect in future updates.

Player vs. Player gameplay is fun, and intense. This to me is the true gem and heart of the game, but its unfortunate that it takes so long to get to this level.

Graphics (7 out of 10):
Graphically this is by far the best looking MMORPG. Although it technically doesn't have the highest polygon count and broadest use of special effects, its the only 3d MMORPG with any artistic style and personality. This is mainly the fault of other MMORPG's, who seem to build everything out of "stock footage" 3d presets. The world is immense and much more varied then other MMORPGS (although still too plain or repative in some places to overcome the "maze-gameplay" problem).

Sound(4 out of 10):
The sound in this, like other MMORPGS, is extremely weak. All the spell and battle sounds completely lack personality and "oomph". The sound designers apperently didn't feel the need to associate pleasureable sounds with pleasurable events, like leveling up.

Overall (3 out of 10):
If you have never played any MMORPG games, I'd seriously advise you to somehow try and see if you can try this game out in a store or a friends house to get an understanding of what an mmorpg is all about. When I had first played an MMORPG, I was shocked at how surealistically bad they were, and so I would advise someone not familiar with the genre to somehow try the game out. MMORPG fans, bearing in mind what I have said here with regards to your specific prefrences, should find this game a good buy.