I've been playing TOR since early access, and I have to say, TOR is a VERY good game... as a single player game, as an MMO it falls flat. The heroics are boring, the flashpoints are interesting enough but not worth doing more than once, the Operations aren't even playable until you've already burned yourself out doing the flashpoints on hardmode over and over and over grinding equipment just to be able to do them, which is the reason I have yet to actually do one. However, warzones are pretty intense and hectic, which is the only redeeming part of it.
The mistake Bioware made most of all is that the endgame content was lacking, and when EVERYBODY complained about it, what did they do? They covered their ears and went "lalalalalalalalalala!!! I can't hear you!!! Lalalalalalala!!!" You can't have an successful MMO without countless time sinks built in from the start and not expect to lose lots of people. In addition to the other issues that they never got around to actually fixing.
I've taken my time with the story and haven't tried to blast through everything as fast as possible and thus I'm still I'm only on my second character, which is about a planet or 2 away from being done, which is probably why I still like playing it.
OT: Everybody and their mother expected F2P to happen, and I'm actually pleased to see that it's less restrictive than it could have been. They could have blocked out parts of the story, removed equipment, and so on, but they didn't, and they're being gentle with PvP too, which is fortunate. I personally probably won't ever do much other than the storyline anyway, so I'm happy with this, and if I ever feel like doing everything again I'll just grab a timecard or something.