I don't understand, why the great reviews?
I have played mmo's now for almost 10 years and was looking forward to Rift, I was in beta and I did enjoy it and let me say that this is certainly not a bad game.
It's the type of game that when you first play it sucks you in and you enjoy it but the higher level you get to, the worse it gets.
The pvp is complete unbalanced, i'm really fed up with the rock paper scissors type mmo's, also to be killed in 2 or 3 hits is just lame. The original swg was a great pvp game for me, fights took skill and patience, 1 fight could last up to 40 minutes, 1 v 1 that is.
Rifts classes are boring, the animations are stiff, the world is small and the warfronts are extremely boring, together with a long wait at max level to get into a dungeon, the game is just a big no for me.
The only reason I gave it a 7 is there is plenty of content and it's only been out about 6 months, also this game has tried to copy wow too much, it's almost a carbon copy, when will mmo developers realise that wow has been around for 7 years, if you want to take some aspects from that game and improve them then ok great, but to try and copy it almost completely and be better is just not going to happen. Rift can be fun for a few weeks but then the fun wares off, it did for me anyway. It really is quite hilarious that Trion said this game would be the next gen mmo, LOL.
Also some of the classes are painfully boring to play, saboteurs for example, you basically put down a couple of aoe's and spam the charge button and then detonate, rinse and repeat.
Well Trion, what was it you said, "we're not in Azeroth anymore", well ok but we certainly aren't in Telara either.