So my wife has been asking me to play WoW for a long time now, according to her anyway. I don't really have a memory, so for all I know she could have said "let's get WoW" instead of "good morning" every day and I wouldn't have a clue. Either way, we got it last weekend. Here's the summary: I started a new class, we played around for a while, and I said to myself "mneh, I guess this is ok, but I don't see how people find it so engaging." Then I looked at the clock and it was 6 hours later.

To be clear, I've been on the cutting edge for close to 15 years now. I played some of the original MUDs, then moved on to Ultima Online, Everquest, and Anarchy Online. Immediately upon playing I slipped back into MMORPG-speak, asking my wife to "DPS that guy, and aggro his friends, then buff me," to her total confusion.

World of Warcraft is the McDonald's of MMOs. There's nothing in there that's really special or niche. They took Tolkien, D&D, and the existing Warcraft games, put them in a blender, strained out the interesting bits, and presented the bland paste to the masses. Fortunately for Blizzard, they managed to do this PERFECTLY. The characters are all bland in the exact same way, and great care is taken to ensure the classes are equally as dull. Some games (City of Heroes comes to mind) over-balance the characters. If one is too awesome, they simply buff all the rest. WoW takes the opposite approach. When a class is known to be too powerful, that class's abilities are "nerfed," which is to say they are reduced or removed completely.

That being said, the classes are still interesting. Many of them mirror their D&D counterparts.

CLASS: DRUID
The Druid is a good solo class. You have the ability to shapeshift, which allows you to take on the aspects of fighter or rogue at will, in addition to your base form, which allows you to be a magic/melee/healing character.
D&D Counterpart: Druid
Imagine that! The same name and everything. The WoW class differs in that the D&D Druid cannot heal.

CLASS: HUNTER
The hunter is cooler than I originally thought. Basically, you're a ranged marksman with various spells that root the enemy in place so they can't get to you. Good for crowd control. Plus, you can capture creatures you encounter out in the wild and keep them as pets, sending them in to do direct combat or distract your enemies. Good all-around class.
D&D Counterpart: Ranger (Archery focus)
The D&D Ranger meets up with the Hunter pretty exactly, except the Hunter cannot choose to use melee weapons, which is a big drawback in my opinion. You still have access to SOME, but it would be nice if the Hunter could choose either the bow/gun track, OR the sword track.

CLASS: MAGE
The Mage is a very physically weak character that won't last long in combat. However, they have enormous damage dealing power, able to directly damage a single target for huge damage OR cast area of effect spells that damage multiple targets. Their Polymorph spell allows them to turn various members of the enemy group into harmless sheep for a time, which is definitely handy when outnumbered. They also can summon food and drink for the party, which is nice when going on extended jaunts away from town.
D&D Counterpart: Wizard
The large number of spells and general lack of defensive magic is a pretty common description of the "war mage" in any RPG. The Mage is a good mix of spells and abilities, especially as a support character.

CLASS: PALADIN
I was hopeful about the Paladin. I was hoping it would be a class like the Warrior, but with slightly worse damage dealing and spells. Turns out, this is exactly what the Paladin is, but the whole style of play isn't what I was expecting. I was expecting to be able to call down holy judgment on an enemy from afar, then run up and whack the hell out of him. The Paladin's magic works on a system of "seals" and "judgments." There are various rules as to how many seals and judgments can be active at any one time per enemy, per paladin, and per area. Plus, some judgments need a seal to be active, and some seals prevent future judgments, it's all very complex. It seems to me that the most effective way to play a Paladin is to choose a specific sequence of seals and judgments, then do nothing but that from then on. It's a shame, because some of them are cool. You can, for instance, cause an enemy to refund any damage dealt to him as health to ANY attacker. You can also slow enemies and buff friends. Maybe more time playing the Paladin will help me understand it, but as a starting character it's confusing. Plus, neither the manual NOR the strategy guide touch on the judgment/seal combinations, so I was in the dark.
D&D Counterpart: Paladins
Another one-to-one ripoff, the Paladin in WoW lacks the immediate "holy strike of awesomeness" that the D&D paladin gets. Although I didn't encounter any undead, the starting paladin package doesn't have any kind of smiting capabilities that I was expecting.

CLASS: PRIEST
The priest is a lightly armored healer/buffer class. They are support characters ONLY, not able to last in battle for any significant amount of time. Priests can also revive characters, as well as protecting and healing groups, so they are very sought-after for groups.
D&D Counterpart: Cleric
I have to say, the WoW Priest is a pussy compared to the D&D Cleric. I remember Clerics in full plate mail, whacking away at monsters with maces and flails, taking a step back to cast walls of flame across the battlefield, THEN healing someone. It seems like all the awesome was sucked right out of the Priest. Though they can revive characters much more easily than their D&D counterparts, death in WoW is significantly less serious than in D&D, so that makes sense.

CLASS: ROGUE
The rogue has some massive damage-dealing potential. Their access to the lower-level armor (cloth and leather) combined with their abilities to disappear and backstab make them deadly assassins that can hold their own in direct combat. Like their D&D counterparts, rogues can also open locked doors and chests, pick pockets, and disarm traps, which makes them very useful for dungeon exploring. Their hiding abilities also make them great as scouts, but again this is really a support character. Their damage-dealing is great, but surrounded by a mob you're sure to die without assistance.
D&D Counterpart: Rogue
Same/same, though the D&D Rogue's ability to do sneak attack damage while flanking is still my favorite rule of any RPG ever.

CLASS: SHAMAN
Finally, a class with no real D&D counterpart, or a counterpart in any RPG that I'm familiar with. The Shaman was a horde-only class (now given access to the Alliance via the Burning Crusades) that is deeply rooted in the primitive and savage history of the Horde races. The Shaman is another great solo class, mixing melee combat and magic, including healing. The Shaman has an interesting series of magical and quasi-magical abilities called totems, which are objects you can plant on the ground that grant area effects. They are not centered on the character, so the Shaman takes considerable planning to be played properly. Additionally, characters supporting (or being supported by) the Shaman need to stick to the same plan. The Shaman is an interesting character class, and I'm sure I would have more fun with it if I tried it out more. I gave up early, for reasons mentioned below.
D&D Counterpart: None
I'm sure you could do a Paladin/Rogue/Sorceror multiclass that would become a sort of ghetto shaman, but the shaman stands on its own.

CLASS: WARLOCK
The Warlock is distinct from the Mage in that they focus less on "bolt of X, where X is an element" and more on curses, summoning, and buffs/debuffs. The Warlock can summon pets, making it the magical version of the Hunter. They both specialize in ranged damage, and they both can send creatures into battle. The Warlock simply focuses on magical special abilities instead of physical ones.
D&D Counterpart: Sorcerer
Curses, buffs, debuffs, area of effect, ranged damage, and summoning...sounds like a sorcerer to me!

CLASS: WARRIOR
The quintessential questing class, warriors are pure combat. Skilled in every melee weapon and armor type in the game, the warriors have high hit points, deal lots of damage, and their abilities are all focused on combat actions. They can shield bash, bull rush, and everything else you'd expect a brave warrior to be able to do. The warrior also has different "stances" which affect the way they attack as well as what abilities they have access to. That bit of complexity adds to the fun of playing as a Warrior, but still not enough for me.
D&D Equivalent: Fighter/Barbarian
At the base, the Warrior is the Fighter. However, once you get higher levels and get the Stances, you realize it's closer to the Barbarian, with the ability to Rage and all that.

Now that the classes are out of the way, we can talk briefly about the races. They aren't really that much different, they don't have any affects on stats, speed, kill power, or anything else. They're just artificial class limiters, and they decide your starting area. Plus, they each have something special about them, like an extra 1% to critical hits or an extra 2% to dodge, that adds up in the long run, but really shouldn't affect your decision much. Start a character in each race and see if one of the starting environments really appeals to you.

Ok, back to the actual REVIEWING. The environments are gorgeous, and the character models are (for the most part) entertaining and beautiful. One of the main reasons I've avoided multiplayer games in general for the last 5-6 years is because I hate people. I really, truly do. And MMORPGs are FULL of people.

When my wife and I first started, we took a number of pairs of characters up to level 5 or 6. Each time we encountered other players, but it was all sort of a side-story to what we were all actually doing. We'd greet each other, maybe trade a little or buff each other, then go about our business.

Then we finally rolled Horde, and made the mistake of doing so during a server outage. When the manual said the Horde was "savage" I didn't think they meant that they ONLY allowed 13 year olds to play. After spawning we were immediately greeted by a level 6 warrior running around the starting area challenging all the level 1 characters to a duel, and calling everyone that refused a "pusy." After escaping that small area, there were other higher-level characters killing all the first-level quest animals. At first level, your first few quests are generally "Kill X number of the local level 1 wildlife." However, you can't actually DO that if they're all already dead. The final straw was when a guy decided to follow my wife around, constantly requesting various sex acts, then calling her a lesbian when we told him to go away.

The interface itself takes some getting used to. It's most closely comparable to The Witcher. It appears to be a third person action game, but you can click on all the icons scattered around the screen to perform various actions. However, WoW doesn't do mouselook by default. WASD is used, but A and D are TURN, not strafe, so you spend a lot of time attempting to get the badguy in front of your screen. You can hold down rightmouse for mouselook for a time, but I would rather it be a toggle. Maybe I'm missing something.

The quests, as I said before, are engaging, but so far (up to level 10) they all fall into one of these four categories:
1) Go over there and kill X of creature Y
2) Take this item to my friend, who lives vaguely in that direction
3) Go to the nearby dungeon and retrieve X
4) Search the surrounding wilderness for X person or Y artifact, bring him/it to me

Now, there are dozens of kinds of environments, and hundreds of dungeons, so it's not going to be like you're trapped in a bad RPG forever. I dare say that WoW even has a better overall look and feel than Oblivion, which is still the best RPG I've ever played. If I could play Oblivion side-by-side with my wife in the same game world, I'd probably never go back to WoW.

All in all, the game is relatively engaging, and highly addictive for no real reason. The characters are interesting enough to keep you going, but not so interesting that they're impressive. The environments are great. The quests can generally be shoehorned into 4 or 5 categories, but the differences in the environments and difficulty levels make them varied enough to stay engaging. The whole thing loses two whole ratings points because of the other players. If I could play WoW on a private server populated only by my friends, or an invite-only server with really strict mods, that would bump the rating up to EPIC WIN, it really would. The fact that a 13 year old can follow us around screaming sexually-based profanities and stealing our kills ALL NIGHT means that I'm relying on other people not being dicks in order to have fun. The minute you rely on random strangers to stand by and allow you to have fun is the minute you'll never have fun again. Pick an unpopulated server, roll a character in an unpopulated area (like night elf) and play until the people get to be too much for you, then repeat.