First off, let me say my wife and I are (were) a long-time (whole time) WoW players. We loved WoW. We still think it's a great game. The cheif complaint we have with wow is everything is a grind. We hated PvP in WoW. We were PvE raiders. WAR changed our view of PvP. In fact, PvP sucks and it's a dirty word in our house. We don't PvP - we RvR.(Realm vs Realm)

WoW is a highly polished game, with 4+ years of updates. WAR is a newly released game lacking 4+ years of player feedback and updates. So right off the bat it would be impossible for it to match WoW in polish. Get past that - remember when Paladins couldn't Tank? Remeber before that when the only raid was UBRS? Or complete lack of any battleground at all?

To those of you interested in what all the fuss is about here's what you need to know:

WAR costs about the same as WoW.
WAR can be played 30 min at a time. No shit. Not like WoW claims to be. END-GAME WAR can be done in 30 min, but a major keep seige might last 2 or 3 hours. No problem. You don't even have to be there to contribute to the zone control. PvE, Scenarios, PQs, and RvR all contribute to zone control. Play how you want!

WAR will give you things that you can't get in WoW. And as a matter of posterity it should be noted, that WotLK features that mirror WAR were ideas copied from WAR, not the other way around. (Guild calendars, Acheivements etc) And WoW did not execute these ideas as extensively either.

WAR gives you a guild that you can take personal pride in the advancement thereof. You contribute to your guild leveling up. Your guild levels up, you gain extra benifits guildwide.

Guilds can capture a RvR keep in their name. This costs money to maintain, but earn the guild renown (exp for guilds) and gives you notariety on the server.

You can capture your enemies guild banner, and display it as a trophy of war upon the side of a RvR keep your guild owns. How loud can you yell PwNd.

Seige equipment. WoW is not lame, and they are borrowing this concept in WotLK. It will be a play-pen version of RvR in WAR, but you will get it in both games. These cost money, and consiquently add cost to seige warfare, especially if you are unsuccessful.

Standards. Think "tabbard" expect put a mideival spin on it. It's your guild banner carried by a guild member conveying bonuses to your team on the field of battle. Plant it in a keep to claim it and defenders of that keep will get the bonuses as long as you hold it. These cost money too, being awesome isnt free.

Speaking of all these costs to the guild, you can setup a tax that automaticly takes a % of money from each member whenever they loot money in game. This does not take the tax when the money comes from trade, mail, auctions etc - just loot.

Want to contribute more? Tithes allow players to set additional taxes upon themselves on an individual basis.

Ever had your guild screwed up by a merger, but needed it to have numbers for a raid? Maybe idealogical differences caused division. Well in WAR you can form an alliance, and retain your guilds individualality, and own way of doing things. This is formally supported. You share an alliance calendar, alliance chat, alliance officer chat etc. Groups were never so easy to form.

You can wear your guild colors on your cloak, and dye your gear to make your guild standout in uniform in battle.
"OH S**T Its those Orange and Blue guys again!"

Do you like canned PvP like the battlegrounds? WAR gives you a plethora of choices here. Let me give you a *FEW* differnt objectives avaialable in WAR:
*Capture the flag - standard CTF.
*Smear the Carrier - Theres a magic "ball" in the middle. Whichever team's player holds the ball gets points for their team. Drop it and the other team gets bonus points. The longer you hold it the more damage it does to the bearer.... it must be dropped eventually.... good luck
*Murder Ball - Magic ball, the carrier of which gets considerably more points for kills made against the enimy. Good luck holding onto it.
*Bomb maps - think counterstrike. Bomb in the middle, teams fight for who is carrying the bomb, but once they secure it, need to then carry it and successfully plant it at the enemies bomb site in order to score.
* Control - Multiple control points, more forcers make each point capture faster. More control points held increases score faster.
* King of the Hill - One objective to hold. Score as you hold it.

Or try out the "real" battlefield, and take keeps. Take enough territory, and take your opponents capitol city away. Explore epic PvE in their capitol cities.

Public quests. Some people complain about these being too hard solo. I say re-read the name and delete your stupid post. PUBLIC does not just mean anyone can do it - otherwise all quests would be "public". Public in this case means anyone can participate, numbers required.

Wrath of the GRIND King is more of the same FTL.