An MMO that advances the core gameplay mechanics of the genre, feels like something new and is simply a lot of fun.
Players start out in a fairly robust character generation system, choosing one of 5 races and 8 professions and determining the look of their avatar. You can modify facial details, body type and height here; it's not just a matter of selecting from a few different faces and hairstyles. You also answer a few questions about your character's past and general outlook on life that have an effect on the plot of the game you see, or as the game calls it your "Personal Story." Having played only one race and class so far, I'm not sure how much this actually changes things, but it's nice to see an element of role-playing that goes beyond your level, abilities and gear.
The first short bit of the game you see is a brief introduction/tutorial that lets you get your feet wet with the instanced story segments you'll be seeing a lot of as you progress your personal story. It should be noted though, that instances are found almost exclusively in the story, the rest of the world is open and populated by other players. The story itself plays out in segments, as you go from task to task uncovering a deeper mystery related to the evil dragons who are back to take over the world. It's nothing too original but it has its moments, such as a bit about an evil circus intent on mind control of the human population, and it is well paced well-acted. Much of the dialog is played out in the talking-head back and forth style reminiscent of the storytelling in many a Japanese strategy game. I would have preferred more in-engine animated scenes. Since the story involves several significant choices, each race has its own starting area and there are several mid-level areas shared by multiple races, I'm guessing the story can be quite different for different players.
The world of Tyria is simply beautiful. One thing you will note about the world, especially in the cities, is how vibrant and colorful it is and how real it feels. NPC's chat with each other, hawk goods, run up to you and ask for help and move about performing their day to day rituals in a very convincing manner. The other highlight is the scale of the world. The human city of Divinity Reach, in particular, towers over you. In no way does it feel like there has been any abstraction of scale here, or that the programmers have only given us the illusion of size. You could actually get to whatever you see if you could fly, and sometimes you can get there by jumping. The game encourages players to explore the world by rewarding them for visiting the many points of interest, unlocking all the travel portals and viewing animated in-engine scenes from "Vistas" they show off the more interesting parts of the world. Much of this world is underwater too, where you can swim as long as you want thanks to the breathing apparatus you automatically don on submerging yourself. If exploration is your thing, this is your dream game.
The other part of exploration is the Hearts that show up on your map and over an NPC's head which indicate someone who has tasks for you to perform. These are technically quest hubs, but the way Guild Wars 2 handles them they feel nothing like the usual "take on 6 gather/kill/fetch quests, complete them all and come back." There are an incredible variety of tasks to be done and they don't feel repetitious. You'll be doing anything from gathering ingredients for stew, to manning a catapult, to cleaning graffiti from a town's walls, to finding lazy kids to get them to do their chores, to destroying malfunctioning machinery, to freeing soldiers trapped in spider's cocoons. Yes, you can also kill enemies and fetch items, but the real change here is you have the choice. The NPC's will give you a list of things to do. Killing an enemy might grant you progress on fulfilling the NPC's task list, but you're never required to kill 12, or even one. Often the enemy killing will be done incidentally while performing other tasks.
Advancement is mainly from experience toward leveling, and you get experience in Guild Wars 2 for everything. Fighting, crafting, exploring and completing quests all grant primary experience, and so does reviving fallen comrades and harvesting raw materials. If anything leveling in this game seems a bit too fast. Characters also advance through trait points acquired at each level and distributed between 5 different paths; and through skill points acquired from many challenges scattered across the maps and used to unlock abilities.
A character can have at most 5 of these abilities active at once, and they can be changed at any time outside of actual combat. Each class can equip two sets of weapons which can be swapped out at any time. Weapons each provide a different set of abilities which unlock fairy rapidly with use and stay available for the rest of your career. Switching out weapons and abilities as the situation warrants provides for a lot of tactical variety. Underwater combat utilizes an entirely different weapons loadout which pops up as soon as you submerge, and your land based skills are not usable underwater, which, along with the third dimension provided by the fact that you're swimming underwater, makes aquatic combat feel entirely different from that on land.
Players are encouraged to group by allowing everyone involved in a kill to get loot and experience. Grouping does not have to be formally set up, although it can be. Players can simply help each other out whenever they want. Much content requires a group or even a mob of players to successfully complete. All classes can heal themselves and others, and can revive other fallen players. While in practice this does mean you see a lot of players working together, unfortunately it doesn't mean said players have to talk to each other. The game makes the mechanics of grouping so easy it loses the socialization aspect found in forming a group and arranging a plan for working together and splitting the rewards.
As you travel about the maps, you will run across "Events" that require the participation of varying sized of groups. These can be anything from escort missions, defense or attack of a base or killing a large and powerful enemy. Once these events are completed by one group, they soon start up again, which detracts from their dynamic nature and sets up a somewhat immersion breaking unbelievable situation. There is one particular kid who goes straight back to being lost in a cave every time players escort her back to her mother. On the other hand the base conquest events do provide for the ongoing change of control of parts of a map from friendly NPC's to enemies.
Crafting in Guild Wars 2 is fairly deep despite it's being just a matter of dump in the ingredients and click the button as in World of Warcraft. The gear you can make via crafting is perfectly good for use in the wilds of Tyria. The trading post crosses all servers and makes selling some of the things you make fast and easy, although the market is saturated with certain items because so many players are making them to level their crafting skill, at least at this point in the game's life. Crafted goods upgrade every 5 levels, though sadly their appearance changes only every 15. With the pace of leveling as fast as it is and experience being granted by harvesting and crafting (especially when you discover a new item at near your crafting level) it can mean somewhat too frequent trips to a crafting center if you want to level crafting along with your profession level and keep your character in the latest gear.
All in all, Guild Wars 2 is a fun, immersive and pattern breaking MMO with a few disappointing, but not annoying or discouraging flaws. Anyone who has been waiting for something different from the World of Warcraft pattern that MMO's have been following for the last 8 years should be happy in the vast, scenic and diverse world of Tyria.