I've been playing since the first beta weekend event and I still love the game. I have 13 characters with my charr guardian being level 73 which is the highest level, at the moment. I stopped to focus on my engineer which is quickly becoming my new main as it's different than what my friends started off with. Most of my characters are charr since they're my favorite race, but I also have a few asura, a nord, and a human so I can check out their stories as well. I plan on making a sylvari as soon as I figure out which profession I want to use for it. Whenever I get bored with one character or profession, I jump on another. The thief has been the hardest profession for me to play, so far. I've tried all the professions, but there are a few I haven't played on, much (like the mesmer and necromancer). Part of it is learning how the profession works and the other finding which weapon sets I'm more comfortable with. A concept that I absolutely ADORE in this game.
I also love the lack (or reworking) of roles in this game. It allows for a lot of adaptability during a fight, and no more of that "it's the healer/tank/DPS fault we lost" BS. It just gives people a reason to point fingers at each other and not re-evaluate their own actions. Roles were the reason why people were stuck in LFG queues in WoW for so long. Few people wanted to play certain roles, leaving everyone else hanging. I'd prefer to keep that annoyance out of GW2.
While I will sing the game's praises from the mountain tops, I do have a few gripes about some of the content:
1. I saw it mentioned in this thread already, but they do need to make some of the group events solo-able. The areas aren't as crowded as they use to be and being cut off from an area due to a champion mob is really annoying. I've seen people try to use the chat to call for help in dealing with the problem, but it's not a guaranteed way of getting enough people to fight the mob.
2. Some of the jumping puzzles in the game can be a bit too difficult, especially those with a timer or a "miss this jump and fall to your death" scenario. I'd imagine that these puzzles might be easier to do with a controller, but trying to make a sharp turn or a split second maneuver with a mouse and keyboard can, at times, feel impossible.
3. Lack of enemy variety. Now, don't get me wrong. The world is full of enemies. And it's nice to see that an enemy in one area has some influence elsewhere in the world as it keeps everything from feeling isolated. However, I do get tired of killing Inquest, Ghosts, Flame Legion, etc. After a while. It may be because, aside from getting stronger or having a few new attacks, they don't really change much. This can make fighting them feel repetitive from time to time.
4. Lack of armor variety. This is probably my biggest gripe. I love customizing my character and I love it when I get new armor, especially if it shows how my character is getting stronger over time. But good lord, it feels like you're stuck with the same armor (just different stats) for 10 or 20 levels. I was going to do dungeon runs with my friends to get some of that armor, but one friend lagged behind, so that idea went bust for a while. I also wanted the racial tiered stuff, but it's so expensive, that it doesn't seem worth it. Unless you buy gold, you would've out-leveled the armor by the time you manage to get the gold just from grinding. This also brings me to my last gripe.
5. The pacing of the crafting system feels slow. At the earlier levels, it feels like you can make your own armor as you level up, but once you get to the higher levels, the materials that you need seem to be more scarce. By the time you get enough to make the armor that you need, you would've out leveled it. To get your crafting up to your level, you'd have to spend some coin on the auction house or go out an grind for more materials. Around level 30 or so, I pretty much stop crafting for my character and I end up buying the armor off of the auction house.
The game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the pros greatly outweigh the cons for me. I bought the collector's edition and I don't feel like I've wasted a single penny on this game. With no sub fee, I feel like I can take a break from the game for any length of time and not feel like I'm wasting money.
