Great at first, too much grind in the end.
The beginning of the game/leveling:
This part of the game is great. Everything from creating your character to start enjoying the world for the first time and unlocking new skills and abilities. You earn your skills in a great way. You've got most of them very early on and the fact that you have to use different weapons to unlock new skills is great. The game rewards you for trying out different weapons and tactics. It's also nice to see a new take on the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps). Even though I've personally never had any problem with classes being made for one or two certain things, it's nice to see something new. I might also add that coming from playing RIFT (among others) it's hard to find a game that's better when it comes to diversity/flexibility in classes (but that can also create balancing problems, but that's another review).
As for the loss of a quest log, I'm not sure that's only I good thing - like Mr. VanOrd makes it out to be. The quest log can be an annoying wall of text and gibberish and something you just wish you could throw in the open fire, but it can also be something else. For me the quest log is a great way to keep track of what I've got to do. What my possibilities are. I can make sure to do quests in a specific order, or even skip quests if they seem boring/out of place/have bad rewards. It can also be a great way of getting stories out of quests, making them feel a bit less shallow. I'd actually rather have a decent written story about something than two sentences of meaningless spoken dialog.. All in all the removed quest log is neither a good or a bad thing and the game does not earn, or lose, any extra points over it.
Gameplay:
The game feels great to play. The new dodge mechanics are great and it feels like a good mix between the old targeting-mmo formula and the new action-mmo formula we've seen in games like TERA. The animations are good and everything feels "in the pocket". No annoying ability delays and stuff like that.
The exploration bit sets this game apart from what I've played before. The fact that it's rewarding to run around and explore the world feels great. The jumping puzzles are really good and makes for a nice break from the killing/collecting now and then. Especially when controlling the character feels as good as it does.
Graphics:
The game looks & runs really great. The art style is great and there is really nothing to complain about here. Although, sometimes I feel like armors/weapons and such could have a bit more detail to them. When you look closely at things, it's not really that great. But over all the game looks and plays really well.
PvP:
This is usually what I'm going for in mmo's and in this game I wasn't disappointed. I love the fact that you can jump into pvp as soon as you've created a character and that everyone is the same level and has the same stats in the mists (pvp-area). It makes it all about skill. What you earn from leveling up in pvp is the ability to make/use better looking armors and weapons. It gives you a sense of progress, but.. and here's a big but. I really do miss the fact that leveling up in pvp can give you better weapons, make you feel stronger and better. I'd rather have that and make the games matched (lvl this and that against each other and so on). I would also like to see some specific pvp-skills. And some pve-skills nerfed/removed from pvp. Here's the problem with the class system they have. Some classes got a bit much of everything when it comes to pvp (heals, dps, survivabilty etc.). Over all the pvp is really good in a lot of ways, but after a while you'll feel like "been there done that" and at that point there is really nothing that'll keep you coming back for more. Sadly enough.
End game:
This is where the game falls short for me. When I hit 80 and started doing the end-game stuff with my guildies I realised that it was all about grinding. For a while there it was all about logging in, doing your daily, get the orichalcum and run around between 3 specific points doing the same events over and over and over and over again. That's what everyone was doing. Farming and grinding, and farming and grinding. That's what you have to do. I personally hate farming and grinding so, I had to take a break from the game shortly after that. If you enjoy that, I can see how this game is a 9 or 9.5. For me it drops it to a 7.5.
So, it's a good game in a lot of ways. It's cheap and you don't have to pay for it more than once. It's nice to level up and the pvp is great the first 2-3 weeks. I'm glad I picked the game up and I've enjoyed a lot in it, but I'll probably not be playing it for a while now. Last time I played the new kind of grind was a new instance (fractals) that "everyone" was farming over and over again. The same instance, over and over and over. Soo. I won't be coming back if this is the formula Guild Wars 2 is sticking to. Anyway. If you're uncertain about the game, I'd suggest you pick it up and decide for yourself. It's worth the money at least.
/J
i5@4GHz, 8Gb DDR3 ram, Ati 6950, naga/nostromo, Win 7 64-bit.