Hello All,
Many year lurker here to give what I believe is an unbiased opinion on the several Beta weekends I played.

Preamble: I played a Jedi Consular up to level 17 and a Bounty Hunter to 12 so as you can see, I am not your typical die hard MMO player as I just don't have the time, I do feel however that I have experienced enough to generate an opinion on it. Additionally, I have been playing WoW for 6+ years now and for the most part loved the game.

1. Character creation.
5/5
Loved all the options and loved that the system gives you a lot of information about your class and what your future gaming will be like. In addition the amount of customization you have is insane when compared to WoW.

2. UI
3/5
I will admit, coming from WoW where we have so many addons and options, I was at first a little concerned by this, although once I actually took the time to move things around and add some action bars it got much better. The one main gripe I have is that you cannot change how far back your camera can go past what they set as max. I could be the fool here and there may be an option to do so but I couldn't find it. If you can change this, then I would be much happier. In addition, a way to change the UI scale would a welcome feature.

3. Questing
4/5
Again, I think they did a great job on this as well. I would have given it a 5/5 if I was not so spoiled playing WoW and not having to run all over the place endlessly. This however is a nice change and the questing felt meaningful and well paced. Like I said, there are a few spots that require you to run through a whole zone to complete one quest but they are far and few between.

4. Gear
4/5
Awesome. I love the customizations you can do and I think there is great potential in this area. I am truly excited about what the future holds in this regards. I was even more excited when I realized that excess gear that doesn't fit me from quests can actually be used on your companions...LOL, took me awhile to figure this out.

5. Guilds
0/0
Really never had a chance to get into this so I have no idea how it works.

6. Raids
0/0
Again, never got a chance.

7. Flash Points
4/5
I really liked them and found them to be scaled well with the level ranges they cover. Be advised, don't try to solo. HaHa

8. Chat
3/5
Not really a fan of how this worked but it could be another one of those "if I spent more time tweaking could better" kinda of things. At times I am pretty sure that general chat covered the whole server because people where asking for groups to things I have never heard of. I am sure this will get refined as time goes on.

9. Grouping
4/5
I would love to give this a 5/5 but at times, my spoiled habits of WoW came back to haunt me. As much as I hate the ass tards that are in LFG the ease of which you can get into a DG is nice. I will say though that it is nice to have some server community back and will gladly give up the ease of use for this. Just don't expect it to be a log in and go kinda system, which in all honesty is not so bad.

10. Specs
4/5
Lots of options here and I absolutely love the fact that several unique classes can be tanks and healers. It is a nice change of pace and I think will open the doors to smoother raiding and flash points. My only grief is that as far as I can tell once you pick your advanced class, you can't change it back. This could be a problem for someone new to MMO's and doesn't do there research ahead of time.

11. Travel
3/5
Now I am getting picky here I know this, so bare with me. While I find it easy to travel back and fourth around the areas, I cant stand that the taxi's don't bank properly. I am a helicopter pilot by trade, so this may be just a pet peeve, but it is a complaint I have. To me it takes away from the realism of the whole thing and seems like a shortcut taken by the developers. A small thing yes, but it stands out to me.

12. Story
5/5
Amazing. Not a whole lot more could be said, but I really felt through all of it like I was part of the story. Sure, if you are in a hurry, which you shouldn't be, you can space bar your way through the dialog, but it really is superior to anything I have played before and is what sets this game apart.

13. Combat
5/5
Although I wouldn't have given this rating at first, it really has grown on me and because of the no auto attack thing you really have to give the game a chance to give you enough abilities. Once you have them though, it is so smooth and fun I can't even put it into words. It really is cool to play this game.

14. Professions
4/5
I would have given it a 5/5 but I haven't leveled them to much, but so far, the companion aspect has me intrigued. It is such a new take on an old idea that I can only see good things. I love sending my companion out while I am turning in quests or searching around.

I am going to cut it off there as I could go on and on about different aspects of the game. Please remember that I am a middle of the road MMO player who likes getting on, getting into a story and advancing my character. This game does all of that and more.

I also understand that many people may not like the game or are afraid to leave the comfort of WoW as this is how I was. I fought and fought the idea of this game to the point that I at one point wasn't even going to try it. I received a Beta invite a month ago and have been hooked. Give it a try and go into it knowing it isn't WoW. Blizzard has had 7 years to add all the little features and polish so expecting this game to be perfect is wrong. They do however have a very solid base to work on and I am excited to see how this game progresses.

Thanks For Reading
Mike