This is a Short, Objective Analysis of BioWare's promises for Star Wars: the Old Republic. I will state in simple terms (Yes or No), weather or not BioWare delivered on individual aspects, with a brief description of why
First, let's start with Main Points; the primary marketing allure for SWTOR — a "Fully Voiced, Story Driven MMO"
Fully Voiced - No) SWTOR is not fully voiced. There are many instances of unique voice acting, but there is also a staggering amount of non-voiced Content. For example, there are: quest text Datapads, quest text Mission Boards, quest text Mission Dropboxes, Droids (Robots) who go "beep beep", Aliens that "talk" in random sounds, and the Playable Classes really love to repeat themselves (Look no further, I'm your Sith/I live to serve the Republic, etc.)
Story Driven - No) Simply having a Story does not make something "Story Driven"; to employ this logic would be to claim that World of Warcraft is also Story Driven, as well. The vast majority of SWTOR's "story" is "Kill XYZ". The occasional Dark Side/Light Side options are cool, but they are rare. Each Class does have it's own Story, but it accounts for very little of the content, past level 20, and since the game doesn't end at level 20; it is not Story "Driven", rather it has a Story, just like WoW
MMO - No) SWTOR is no more an MMO, than Modern Warfare 3; it has Online, and you can play it with other people. The game is lacking virtually every feature that defines an MMO in the year 2011/2012, the Raid (Operation) sizes are comically small, with the "larger" setting being 16 man. SWTOR also has no Open World, each zone consists mainly of Hallways (be they outdoor, environmental hallways like Hoth, or literal Indoor Corridors, like Nar Shadaa) there is instancing around every corner; and of the course, there is Sharding separating players from one another, even in the same zone, on the same Server
Okay, so BioWare didn't deliver on the game's Main Points, but let's see how they did with some Features they promised us
Star Wars - Yes) There is lots of Star Wars stuff in SWTOR, the theme, visuals, sounds, pretty much everything.
Space Combat - Yes) I don't care for it, and I guess the EVE Online crowd doesn't either; but BioWare did give us exactly what they promised us with Space Combat, and it works pretty well. Space Combat also comes with Exp for leveling, and you can even get Gear for your Ship
Choices - No) From 1-50, I did not encounter a single choice that actually mattered. It's just picking the Red Option, or the Blue Option
"Epic" Stories For Every Class - No) I'm not an English Major, but the Sith Inquisitor's story is poorly written. Apparently most of the other stories are average, with only the Sith Warrior story, and the Imperial Agent story getting widespread praise
Bolster - No) "Bolster" is the Tenacity (Wintergrasp) Buff, that's supposed to make PvP acceptable for anyone level 10-50 to be in the same Warzone. This feature is comically non-functional; with my Level 50 Sorcerer, I can kill anyone below level 40 with no real effort, and even 40-49 doesn't stand a good chance of taking out a 50. This problem will get much worse, as more people get PvP Gear with Exerptise - which is limited to 50s
Companions - Yes) The Pet AI could use some serious work, but overall, the pets work pretty well. Out of combat, certain pets also have Dialogue, and in typical BioWare fashion, you can have sex with some of them
Player Ships - Yes) They don't do much, but they're there
Crew Skills - Yes) Crew Skills are SWTOR's Professions; what sets them apart is that you can have your pets farm, and craft for you. This was a cool feature, both somewhat innovative, and very convenient
Legacy - No) Legacy is literally undefined
That's all I could think of; which can actually be assigned a Yes/No Rating, while remaining perfectly non-biased. The actual Content for PvE, and PvP will be enjoyable for some, and not for others; just like every other MMO, including WoW. Overall, it seems that BioWare was able to deliver on some, but not all of the features they promised; while missing on the game's major selling points. Obviously no MMO is ever "finished" at launch, since they continue to be developed after Release, but SWTOR still feels like it could've used another year or two in Development. People will try to blame Electronic Arts for this; but BioWare is still the one that made the game, even if EA forced it's release too soon.
TL;DR, I think BioWare was able to deliver on some features, but completely failed to deliver on their major promises. What do you think?