Personally I've never found a playable race to be inherently more interesting just because it looks inhuman and/or ugly.
When I played WoW, I favoured the likes of Blood Elves, Night Elves and Humans. They looked decent enough but more importantly they had interesting story elements tied to them. Granted, over time a lot of those elements were slowly eroded away...
FFXIV is in a weird spot. It puts a lot more focus on its story but the playable races don't really get much attention or depth.