One step away from being a great game but the chasm in between the good and great is huge.
Let me start by saying that yes, I know about the enormous amount of bugs presently in the game, but I'm not going to talk about those. Bugs can be squashed in time, but there are some things that simply can't be fixed by simple patching.
This game seems to have a very different feeling when playing it solo or with groups. I'll divide my review in two parts so I can point it with more accuracy (pun intended).
Solo:
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º General - My first runs on the game were solo. It was amazing. Soloed a couple of characters to the top level, and it was fun.
Great story lines drove me to want to level up 8 different characters, 4 on each faction, so I could watch all the story lines, but that went into the ground pretty fast.
After leveling a Jedi Shadow (consular story line) I went to the opposite faction, rolling a sorcerer (Inquisitor story line) and that might have been a mistake.
º Repeatability - Although being in a different faction the story line felt very very similar. Not only that, but running around the world completing quests gave me a dejavu feeling. Maps, even when completely separated from the other faction were basically the same maps. Same structures, same layout, and the similarity of the quests is more than just the feeling of being in the same place than before.
At level 40 I recon I got bored with redoing all the quests. Oops, did I said redoing? Afterall it's a completely different quest line, but yes, it felt like I was redoing the same quests all over again. It can be said then, that re-rolling a different faction won't give you a lot of new experiences in the game and feels like the only useful thing you'll get, the only thing that actually can keep one playing it, is to level the legacy level, that right now... does nothing.
º Difficulty: With the use of Companion npc's, solo playing in sw:tor is different from most of other games. Having the choice to chose between different companions, each one with it's specialty (melee and ranged tanks, melee and ranged dps, a dedicated healer and even a ship droid that can be equipped with parts and fill the roll of an healer), made the game really easy to solo. With the exception of some group (heroic) quest, there's no "planet" content that can be considered hard or challenging, specially because you'll level quite fast and you'll be always at the correct or higher level than the zones where you'll be questing.
Obviously the harder group content, like flashpoints and Operations are not soloable at the correct level but you'll be able to progress easily skipping all those before level 50.
The ability to get good gear through Commendations moves the need for hard group content into second plan.
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Group:
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º General: Group playing is different in some ways. Two and a half months after I've started playing the game, 3 friends joined and we decided to start leveling new characters together.
Group playing sounds really good in paper. Bonus XP, bonus loot... but playing in a 3 or 4 people group (the group will always be filled even with only 2, since companion npcs fill a slot on the group and with that, all content becomes really easy... Maybe too easy.
º Repeatability - Not much to say about this while talking about group playing. You'll get social points and have some fun with different answers on conversations. You'll be able to join your friends on their own class quests, but beside all that, repeatability is the same as playing solo. Well, maybe a few differences, that I'll point in the following section.
º Difficulty - If the game is easy soloing, what can it be said about playing in a group? It's annoyingly easy.
Normal quests are "steam-rolled" by groups. Sometimes it gets so easy that one barely notices that quests get done. Most of the quests share kills, gathers and clickables, meaning that it can all be done really fast.
With the xp bonus from group playing (the more members the more bonus xp) you'll find yourself overleveling zones/planets really fast.
So you can imagine, at level 40, a group of 3 already have skipped 4 planets due to level and we've skipped lots of quest/bonus series. Sure, it's nice, but they were "gray" by the time we got to it. Loot was lower level, XP was nonexistent at that point.
We also manage to do all Flashpoints on our level range with only us 3 (no healer except for an healer npc companion). That only means it's easier than what I expected at beginning.
Gear comes even easier in groups, specially if each one of the group is using a different main stat (as we are).
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PvP:
Player Vs Player is rather dead in the game. Sure, you have Warzones, instanced pvp mini games that are actually nice and give easy rewards but many are kept outside that fun due to performance issues. World PvP is right now practically nonexistent due to the same reason added to a lack of incentive.
Conclusion:
Although fun, I don't see this game holding for long. With lots of interesting mmos around and some new coming, I don't see myself holding to it for much longer. I pity that really. This game has potential to be a great game, but it's just one (Huge) step away from being it.