Believe it or not, the Gspot reviewer got most of what he says about Vanguard right. But there are a lot less bugs now.
I've played EQ1 for 3 years, EQ2 for 4, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London, and LOTRO, to name a few. I've been playing Vanguard for about 5 days now, and thought I'd share some new-player impressions from July of 2008.
Vanguard has a lot going for it, and I found myself agreeing with the Gamespot reviewer for almost every point he made. The first few levels really don't do Vanguard justice. There is a lot more to this game than you'll ever realize in the first 10 levels. Here are just a few tidbits.
Players can make their own boats, summon them anywhere there's water, and pilot them around. It is, in fact, a great way to travel, as it is tons faster than overland (though they take a fair amount of resources to build). There are of course horses to increase your travel time over foot too.
The diplomacy "sphere" (as VG players like to call them) is actually pretty neat, but takes some getting used to, and a lot of players from MMO's skip it at first because it is complicated. But it is worth the effort spending time in.
The world is gargantuan. You really don't know how big it is at first. But it is beyond enormous. And there are no zones, though you do get the occasional hiccup when you pass from one area to the next.
Most races have vastly different beginnings and quest lines.
Character customization is very well done, and there are an enormous amount of class/race combinations. Some races can't play certain classes, which I actually like.
Racial abilities range from useful (ignore all damage for 11 sec) to utterly cool (dark elves get to summon a dragon, which boosts their spell damage by 10% for 30min).
The death penalty is not as severe as it was at launch, I'm told, but it is still nastier than most other MMORPG's. However, I'm one of the few people who still believes this is a good thing. It forces players to play carefully, and learn their abilities to the fullest. It also adds an element of danger to areas full of aggressive npc's, which is simply not there when there is no death penalty (in EQ2 we let ourselves get killed to get a quick teleport back to the start of the zone, that's how lame the death penalty is there now)
The combat system is well thought out, and different classes really have vastly different playstyles. The reactions you can use in response to a successful parry (for example) are awesome, and really make you want to pay attention to combat. For example my 8th level rogue has two abilities she can use in response to a successful parry... one is a massive DoT (at least 5x more powerful than her regular one), the other is called Deep Pockets which gives you a better chance at loot drops from the mob. The fact that it is not tedious for an auto-attack system is pretty darn amazing.
The main difference between Vanguard and other MMORPG's (except perhaps EQ1) is that nothing is given to you on a platter. You really do earn your keep with this game. You have to train at a trainer to get your abilities (which you get every two levels) (and you can find trainers easily by talking to guards). You have to repair your equipement. Your equipment stays on your corpse when you die, unless it is soulbound (which means you can't trade it either). I LIKE this in an MMORPG, though others have proven that making the game less painful (ie. WoW, EQ2) will garner you a larger audience.
The player base appears to be very helpful for the most part. Flaming and Chuck Norris quips appear to be minimal, though like the reviewer said, Vanguard lovers REALLY love Vanguard. Don't insult the game over /ooc unless you want to get blasted. :)
Vanguard's main flaws remain similar to launch, however there are a lot less bugs. In 5 days I only experienced one hang of the game (which happened when I was trying to launch it), one system reboot (which may have been due to the overclock settings I use), but no client crashes. The most annoying thing is that I constantly have to /flush in order to clear out some graphical anomalies, but after reading the boards I have some hope that I can reduce the number of times /flush is needed.
My main complaints are:
1) Very heavy system requirements (I have a 2.4GHz C2Duo, 7800 GT OC video card, 2GB ram, WinXP SP3, DirectX 9.0c, etc), and I can only barely get decent framerates at medium settings.
2) It doesn't feel any different from other MMORPG's when you first login and play a couple of levels.
3) There is no free trial, HOWEVER, supposedly one is in development and soon to be released (August 08). But again, the first few levels don't really give you a feel for VG, so I don't know if that will help or hurt VG's appeal. It will depend on how its done.
It really is a shame that Vanguard didn't do better at launch, because I feel this game has far more potential than any other MMORPG I've played so far. But the steep system requirements will keep most of the PC gamer population at bay, and those that do try probably won't stick with the game until level 10 which is when Vavguard really starts to shine.
But the game has survived this long, and has a very dedicated playerbase and developer crew.
My recommendation: Give it a try if you're looking for a new MMORPG, but don't give up before level 15. You really won't know what you're missing.