For me from worst to best overall Cata > Wrath > MoP >>>>> BC.
For me it's both cataclysm and Mists. Cataclysm for me lacked raid bosses especially with FL and DS, also I hated how the endboss of the expac was divided into 2 very boring repetitive boss fights. I also think that cata missed some things to do besides pvp or pve, something Mists clearly made up for. Allthough I think that blizzard has tried to put too much of everything in this one expasion.
I don't like pokémon inside WoW, don't really feel like doing brawlers guild or so many daily quests. PVP has been fairly inbalance (but when has it not, i guess..). I did enjoy the first and second tier of raids this expansion though.
If it wasn't for Ragnaros heroic Cataclysm would've been a huge dissapointment to me. Firelands was alright, but DS was a huge let down and around for way too long.
But I'm probably going to go with Cata.
Because I only care for the gameplay? There are a lot of my kind out there, at least I know plenty. A raid doesn't feel strange for me just because of some made-up stuff called lore.
It doesn't, I just said you should get used to it. For me it's not a negative point, so you are the one who must accept this.
Cata was terrible. End patch had both the worse things to ever happen to the game (Dragon soul and LFR)
All though t11 was great.
WotLK: I loved the questing part of game, killing zombies and zombiebugs. Raiding was kinda easy, our noobish team wiped up to heroic Lich King after all. Arthas was pretty epic.
Cata: Questing was kinda meh and zones all over the world wasn't good. Raiding was challenging, we really struggled trough the T11. Only got 4 heroic bosses down in DS. I liked the raiding part because of challenge.
MoP: I have two chars at lvl90. Thats it. CBA to play more, it just lacks something i can't point my finger at. So for me this has been the most depressing expansion ever.
MoP for me cata was crappy too very disjointed leveling ect but mop really brought the lets dumb it all down so 4 year olds can have a good time.
For someone who loved TBC? Everything that came after that
By dark I'm guessing you mean MoP has the most slaying of innocent lives and stuff like that?
Well, I like MoP but Cataclysm was about a dragon slaughtering innocent lives around the entire world and destroying there homes in the process showing no remorse. Wrath was about the slaughtering of innocent lives and rising them as undead to slaughter more innocent lives. BC was about the burning legion..who also... slaughtered innocent lives.
Of course MoP has it's "dark" moments with Garrosh slaughtering innocent trolls and other races and a lot of other stuff but I wouldn't call it the "darkest" expansion.
How do you come from gameplay to the setting? The first evolves around mechanics and stuff like that, the setting more around the environment, which indeed is made-up and bound to the lore.
You mentioned having four levels of that raid as a negative point. I don't mind this, but apparently it somehow is a problem for you. So you are the one that needs to accept it and get used to it instead of expecting me to disprove that point.
After all, it definitely comes down to what you enjox doing.
MoP for example keeps me entertained enough to continue playing every single day despite the fact that all my guildies already quit, and the fact that I'm playing alone most of the time.
In BC, there would be literally nothing I could do in such a situation (apart from looking for a new guild/friends to do stuff with, obviously).
I sometimes logged on during night time when no one was online - what activities were there?
Mostly farming reps and doing random BGs. Great.
No achievements to collect, no pet battles, not much content to solo, not many dailies (with quite a low daily cap). MoP simply added a ton of things to do.
WotLK TotGC wasn't the best indeed, but at least the lore, the areas, quests, ICC and one of the best raids we've ever got, Ulduar... WotLK was a huge expansion, the largest by far and it was fun to play it if you like Warcraft. Of course it was a disap to have so many raid formats, they should have keep it as in TBC and never introduce Ilvl... but hell, WotLK was far better than Cata, Cata had nothing, Firelands.... and it wasn't as good as Ulduar, not even close..
Aehm, where is this Poll Option, "i like all expansion"
Yeah, Cataclysm was the worst; it just lacked effort, polish and imagination with an audience who felt that lack. MoP has also lacked something, but you can't say Blizzard haven't pulled out all the stops to make the game more interesting again. That said, the more casual players who build communities have simply been chased away by brutal raid difficulty and the smashing up of more communal practices.
It's interesting that Wrath is the least disliked (not to be confused with the favourite, though I'm sure it'd win that poll assuming it happened); not even TBC, the so called golden age of the game, can get less "no votes" than Northrend.
I just wish Blizzard learned that fact at the time, but a new and less talented development team didn't help.
Oh, well.