I feel you. I got the game for free and it of course came with the free month, and I tried my hardest to level, but it's sooo boring. Exactly like you said, the zones don't have any character to them. They all feel so desolate and boring. It's a shame really, because I've heard the end game in Rift is even better than WoW's, but I'll probably never get to it.
I would recommend Gothic 3 with the newest Community Patch 1.75 with the Quest Packet both with the newest Content mod. You can download all those for Gothic 3 on http://worldofgothic.com/ . Those things have greatly improved the game and a "fan addon" is being developed. http://page.g3csp.bplaced.de/ They call it the Community Story Project. Should this fan addon be finished, Gothic 3 will most likely become the game all Gothic fans of the previous two Gothic games in the series always wanted it to be.
I've been playing FF7 and FF9 recently, never played 9 before and played quite a bit of FF7 back in the day. From what I've seen of 9 though, I find it an all round better game.