I spent 2 months in the world of Warhammer Online. GamesRadar rated it a 9.

They said:

You'll love

PvE and PvP in harmony
Not a WoW clone
Quite user-friendly
You'll hate

Not an MMO revolution
Still grindy
Tons of hand-holding
They were right when they said you'd hate the grind. It is way grindy. Grindy, grindy, grindy. I thought I was playing 'WarRunner Online'. I spent about 80% of my game time running up and down paths looking for the quest requirements. I made it to 9th lvl before I got so bored and frustrated that I was ready to give up on the game. I was having zero fun playing the game as a single-player.

Mythic makes the claim that the Public Quests are one of the things they did right with Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. The PQ is a good innovation for MMOs but, it isn't worth anything if the areas are so lowly populated. I played about 7 weeks before I was able to get into a PQ with a party worthy of mentioning. That 1 good party had about 8 other players, and I had a real good time playing it. Every other time I was in a PQ for the first 7 weeks, there was maybe 1 other player besides me. Well, sometimes 2, my friend who got me to try WAR was there too a couple of times. His avatar was maxxed out at level 40, and he was slumming to help me out. I don't really count him because he shouldn't have been there.

So the PQ areas were pretty dead, but what one thing related to parties and quests that WAR does right is the Open Grouping. You can jump in and out of parties very easily. None of the hours spent searching for a party that needs another tank. All of that waiting was what killed Guild Wars for me.

And speaking of Guild Wars, I think the loot in WAR is about equal to the stuff you'll find in GW. Actually, WAR is a little better. The loot in GW was mediocre at best, and many items came with negative modifiers. I'm not sure why GW did that. I think it must have been to keep PvP level. But hindering the RPG part of the game was a bad idea. If the uniques are too unbalanced for PvP, then don't allow them in PvP. Don't give them negatives and spoil it for everybody.

So why didn't I quit playing when I hated it at level 9? Well, my friend, who has been in the game since it started, told me to quit playing the RPG stuff and move over to the PvP part of the game. And that was were I spent the rest of my time. The scenarios I played were fun. The PvP combat on the party level is fun too. It is so much more fun than the RPG part of the game that if I was to run a new character I would skip the RPG part and go straight to PvP.

Now, what is the verdict? As a PvP fighting game it's fun. You have a persistent character and you gain advancement based on your performance in the scenario. As an RPG it sucks. But if the PvP aspects of the game appeal to you, then play it and you'll like it. Just be aware that you can have the same online PvP fun in Battlefield Heroes, with no monthly subscription fee. Overall, I can't be as generous as GamesRadar, I can only give it a 6.5 at best.