Allods has a great game engine and a satisfactory storyline but it fails miserably at every other aspect of the game.
The game is a total grind fest.
Yes there is a way to bypass much of the grind: Pay cash. And you'll soon learn that paying cash is a lot of what you'll be doing if you want to approach the 'fun' part of this game.
Secondly, Balance:
The classes are totally imbalanced. In fact, if you ask the hierarchy of power in the official forums, you'll always get similar responses. Healers being in the top portion, scouts and psi being on the bottom. This imbalance has been brought into the publishers/developers attention for so long that its mind boggling why they're putting close to zero effort on fixing it.
Thirdly, PvP:
PvP in this game is a measure of one thing: how much cash you have spent. That'd be ok but the problem is there's almost no limit on the amount of cash you can spend to obtain power. There are 'cash to power' items in the item shop called crystal chips which can be used to build 'runes'. The runes increase your offense and defense considerably and the rune cap costs around 25000 USD(yup, no typo there).
Apart from that there are Item shop items released every month for a limited time in a lottery style which also give considerable power advantage. To get these items you can spend 10s to 100's of USD depending on which 'quality' of pay to win item you need.
Fouthly, PvE:
Endgame PvE content is based on the assumption that you and your raid have spent thousands of bucks in the Item Shop. Currently, there isnt a single guild in the game which has completed the only endgame raid available. PvE content is also recycled a LOT. They just recycle to same instances, increase mob health, offense and advertise it as 'new' content.
It isn't a coincidence that the raiders who go farthest in endgame content are also the ones with the most runes(Cash shop item).
Fifth, Unfair:
There is absolutely zero checks on any cheats or exploits in the game. Basically if you bypass the in built protection system(Starforce mmog) you can do almost anything and the management wouldn't have a clue. In fact, the people managing the game don't even care if you exploit or not. As you read this review, people who have been identified and confirmed for duping gear and gaining levels using exploits are playing the game.
There was also an incident where someone got banned permanently from the game because his wife logged in. Why does duping escape the hammer while someone's wife doesn't? The answer is simple: the game is underpopulated and the staff doesn't want to lose their pay.(i.e. the dupers were paying a handsome amount in the Cash Shop)
Conclusion:
Allods had a lot of potential the way it was designed but due to bad managerial decisions, all its potential was thrown out of the window and the customers trust was lost. Now that the game is aging, it will never get to the status that it deserved had it been managed properly. Already the japanese localized version of the game has been dropped and the European version is hanging by the thread of dangerously low population.