I'm definitely a casual MMO gamer. I enjoy crafting, questing, exploration and 5 man content at various challenge levels. I've never had the time to devote to hardcore endgame content. I've played WOW on and off since vanilla. I normally come back every expansion or two, and cancel my sub when the content gets old. I'm trying to qualify my experience and expectations, because I know that different players enjoy different aspects of WoW.
My reaction to Warlords of Draenor is very mixed. The newest expansion makes some very positive changes, but the content is very thin, the "new" gameplay features are mostly borrowed from other titles, many of the changes break continuity with the past game play in strange and unsatisfying ways, and the expansion in general is not that compelling for me.
Different players enjoy different things, so I don't want to write a hate post about this expansion. If a friend asked whether WoD was worth a return for, I would probably not recommend it, however. The garrison mini-game, around which so much of the expansion is centered, simply isn't very much fun to me. Crafting, for some unexplained reason, is tied intrinsically to the garrison, and artificially gated behind cool downs. It is similar (though not identical) to the follower based crafting system used in some other games, and while some people might like it, it isn't my preference. The fact that it breaks continuity with the old system really stands out to me. The rest of the garrison play just feels like a lot of pointless housekeeping tasks to me. In most WoW expansions, a lot of new opportunities open at level cap. In this one, I basically log in, do garrison housekeeping, and move back to leveling alts again.
The developers have decided not to allow flying mounts in this expansion (which they will possibly reverse at some point). This decision is not a huge deal to me in and of itself, but it another case of the expansion breaking continuity with the past in a way that doesn't make much sense. Either mounts can fly, or they can't, and the constant need to relearn flying every time a new expansion is released is starting to get old. It makes no sense from a logic/ lore continuity standpoint. Some people won't be bothered by that, but it stands out to me.
I enjoyed many of the new questing zones, but they are structured in a more linear fashion than in previous expansions. They are also a have a very once and done feel to them. There is really not enough content to hold my interest in terms of leveling alts or continuing beyond the first play through.
On the positive side, I really enjoy the challenging and different 5 man dungeons in this expansion. I also suspect that raiders are going to get a lot of good content as patches are released. Games like this are hard to make a recommendation about. Certain players are going to love it, and I don't want to steer them away. I like it but I just feel like the content is thin and I don't plan to maintain my subscription. A part of me hoped that this was the expansion that would win me back for a while, but it hasn't held my interest for long.