Forget about the superb reviews so far, the publisher is running a contest about the best ones to be honored with prices
PW is free to play without subscription fees and so has to compare against korean grind fest MMORPGs, while WOW and its relatives play in another league.
And it does very well at that. Free MMOs usually lack in two compartments, the lack of varied gameplay and the money sink called item mall which forces any good soul to empty the bank - often actually paying more than for a couple of WOW accounts.
As for gameplay - it's slow. Not a bad feature in the world of "one hitters" we got today, as the player has the chance to react to an attack as opposed to drop dead within 0.01 seconds. Very much like the original Everquest, encounters take some time.
Gameplay progress however is anything but slow, at least from my point of view, still beeing a noob.
Grinding is non-existant at least to level 20 because experience is earned through quests solely with ease, and i have not even touched advanced features like special dungeons (instances).
What PW retains from similar games coming from the same quarter of the globe is some simplification. A total of 6 playable classes is nothing to write home about, especially when there are only two or three ways per class to build a decent avatar. And yes, your alter ego will be thumbed down to a "build" of some kind.
That said, there are more close relationships to the skill tree in Diablo 2 than coincidence could be accounted for, but to be honest: How many original games have we got to lay our hands onto them in the last few years?
PW is not. Perfect that is. But it declasses the typical korean grindgame by several leagues while still being in an open beta phase (of some kind, since it's a proven game translating to the english speaking market).
Strongly recommended for any bored WOW player as well as any niche online RPG enthusiast from EvE to Ultima Online.
One last word. Ach no, two it is:
Firstly, it's from China. What does it mean? Well, western people believe the number 13 means danger and harm. For decades, no US skyscraper ever had a 13th floor. Same can be said about the number 4 for chinese people. Be prepared for odd numbers. ;)
Secondly, although the translation is pretty good most of the time, some quirks exist and will never be "corrected" due to almost incompatible ways of living and thought. An American could say "my arse" while an asian would you insult just as big by saying that his tea is not well cooked.
All that said, i suggest you give it a try. Won't cost a penny, and the new experience might very well be worth it.
(My score of 7.0 for this game is mostly due to all the "perfect game" remarks out there. It should be a 8.0 to 8.5 as this game is a rare gem amongst the grindfeasts compared. Could reach a solid 9.0 if the quirks following any MMORPG release could be resolved, but i assume PW will fail in this department just as any commercial MMORPG ever released did. All the time, no exceptions).