F-R-E-E that spells free!
I have been playing MMO's for a while (about 12 years). I have played many PTP and FTP games, taking the good with the bad, most of which was bad. The majority of FTP MMO's out there stink, let's be honest. The controls are wanky, or there is terrible graphics, or they passivly 'force' you to pay real money for items that pretty much make gameplay a huge nuisance without (I'm talking to you Atlantica!). But so far, Gates of Andaron has fulfilled all of these categories without disappointment. In addition to Runes of Magic, this is one of the best free to play MMO's I've encountered so far, and I would be lying if I said I've tried less than 30+ of them. The real money online store offers a few nifty things like +exp potions, or special mounts, but nothing that you 'need' to play or enjoy the game.
Moving right along, GoA offers three different races; human, feline, and fairy. Each of them has their strong points and weak points in relevance to the class they choose, of which there are 6. They are warrior, night walker (rogue), archer, magician, priest, and finally evocator. Fantasy MMO vets will be more than familiar with the classes so I won't go into the skills of each.
The targetting and controls are mapped out pretty nice. You can move via the W A D keys instead of being forced to click the ground like most FTP games.
The skills and attacks can be performed via the F1 or number keys, or by clicking the skill buttons on the hotbar. You can customize what goes where so suit your needs.
The leveling is fairly balanced. Although the first ten levels will move rather quickly by doing the simple assortment of started quests, this will slow down a bit after level 10, but not to the point where you're forced to go out and grind 1000x wolves to level up. There is quite a large assortment of quests to keep you busy. How this may or may not change in the higher up levels I do not know, but for now I'm kept busy.
Graphically, the game can be (and I hate to use the comparison) to WoW. Although I've NEVER gotten into WoW, I can see the similarity in the more cartoony graphics opposed to the more realistic approach from games like Conan or EQ2. While this isn't my personal preference, they aren't a pain to look at. The details on the armor and weapon sets are also pretty nice, even if you're using a low level weak set like bronze or the like. Items are also pretty, and can be upgraded, so you don't have to constantly get new gear.
Since the game is very new, and anyone playing before the release has had their levels reset (to my knowledge at least), there are plenty of players in your level range which you can group with if desired. I haven't really seen guilds running around, but this will change in the coming weeks I'm sure.
A few little things that bother me so far are minor but annoying none the less. There is a fee for removing items from the bank. While this will probably not be so bad in the future, dropping 100 bronze in the low low levels is a hassle. There also isn't a mailing system setup yet to my knowledge, which kind of stinks. I'm used to being able to mail items in between characters. I also don't enjoy the durability system of items. I had a fairly decent special 2hs sword at level 5 but the durability would drop so fast I barely got to use it in between repairs. If and when you die, you have to return to the spot which you died as a spirit form of yourself, which will spawn at the last town or area which you bound yourself. You can also resurrect yourself at these special monk npc's, but there is a small penalty which will wear off rather quickly.
As for selling items to other players, this is done via an afk store system. I much prefer selling through an in-game auction house, and I see no reason why a game should be released today without one. These are a few little things that make me smile more upon Runes of Magic as my FTPMMO of choice, but that has a few things which bother me too, since no one game is perfect.
I'll also mention, for your PVP people, the majority of this game is PVE. You can duel other players if you wish. There is also a 'war' feature. While I have not participated in any of this yet, I'm assuming that it works the way it did in Warhammer Online. There are two opposing kingdoms, one is Valorian, a military land, and the other is Derion, the land of magic. Every kingdom is comprised of different sections that exhibit different characteristics. There are castles and occupied territories in each of these sections. You are in charge of the property and trade of the sold products there. For this reason kingdoms create new territories and conquer the territories of other kingdoms. Refer to the website for more on this.
If someone sees a mistake I've made please let me know and I will correct it.
So overall, this game gets a B+ so far. I highly recommend checking it out. It's free to download at http://www.gatesofandaron.com/ and while you're there you can also check out more about the classes and races and such in more detail. And if you wind up not liking it, so what, it's free!!