Well, people will always hype the living snot out of any game only to turn around and trash it a month or so along the line. That's just how people are. The MMORPG genre is incredibly stale and saturated now, and you have this awful habit where people just hop monthly game to game and complain it's not capable of cleaning their car, making them toast or whatever strange thing people think a game will do for them. Realistically, it's just a game. A time sink to help you relax and you're meant to enjoy. For some people spending 7 years on WoW clearing reptative content and collecting boar livers they're not going to want to do that in a game that's not theirs. And no I'm not bashing WoW, there's a distinction between a game being bad and being bad for them.
The odds are, you're an intelligent, cautious person that doesn't really want to waste cash on titles that fufil the exact void you're looking to get away from. I've personally installed a fair few betas, trials and demos just to uninstall them minutes later as they weren't what I liked. I judged them harshly, but frankly if it's my cash I'm not going to pay for something that to me seems tediiously similar. Whether it is or not, I'm not debating. It's my own irrational opinion I'm not inflicting on anyone.
It's a shame that you weren't looking at GW 2 a fortnight ago where you could get a beta key to try it. I resisted the urge to pre purchase without trying it, and certainly wouldn't regret that at all. There's only so much other peoples' opinions, videos and thoughts can tell you, and to be blunt if you're on a forum for a game the odds are people will get very defensive and strange over *their* game and refuse to see the bad points.
GW 2 has a lot of flaws. It's not really the second coming of mmos, no and probably not as innovative as some people would have you believe. From a personal standpoint I think it's an exceptionally made and beautiful game, but I can accept its flaws (the personal stories are...meh in most part, the hearts and DEs are essentially questing is disguise with a few fancy elements and some professions need some work) and can't wait to play it again.