Just now seeing this. This weekend was my second beta weekend. My Aion/WAR guild that I mentioned before formed up over the beta weekend and we raped face in the Warzones. It was a lot of fun. One of our guys has reached the level to venture to the OWPVP area and he will give us a report of what it's like tonight. Overall I'm enjoying this game more than I thought I would. It doesn't bring anything amazingly new to the genre but it's something to play until GW2.
Things the game has going for it:
1) Story. It's freaking Star Wars! We were ALL once kid nerds who always wanted to be a bad ass lightsaber wielding maniac. The personal Story is VERY well done and is unique in the MMO genre. Basically if you've played any single player Bioware game that's exactly what the personal story is like but in an MMO. Lots of cut scenes that are well done, rich quality story, etc. In most MMO's I've never given a damn about the story, I just wanted to kill shit but in this game I've actually been following the story and it's different for each character class. (There is space combat but I have yet to partake in it so I cannot comment on it.)
2) Lightside/Darkside. These are points accumulated from choices you make in your quests. Basically it comes down to being nice and caring or a blood thirsty maniacal bad ass killer who shoots/stabs first and asks questions later. The choices you make also affect the relationship with your companion (you get a total of 4 companions who fight beside you in the game.) Some of your companions are heavy on the light and some on the dark side.
3) Companions. A very unique aspect to MMO genre. Basically they are like pets that are bad ass and have great UI. They fight along side you, craft for you, talk to you, vendor your trash, and are involved in your story. As I mentioned above you get a total of 4. Each one is different, you get a tank, dps, and healer type. Only one can be out at a time.
The things I feel need improvement are:
1) Grouping outside of instances. For the most part you can solo level, you don't really need anyone else aside from your companion unless you are doing heroic rank 4 quest(nothing in common with heroic WoW crap). I soloed heroic rank 2 quests with my companion easily. I feel there should be more grouping outside of instance but I only hit 20 so who knows what the higher level areas will be like. The pve instances I did do we rolled through easily.
2) The graphics engine. After playing Aion I'm a lil biased. This is 2011, the graphics are like that of a game in 2008. I'm running this on max on my 560 ti that's being OC'ed and I'm receiving anywhere between 60 and 111 frames, a guildy has an 8800 GTS and was getting 25-40 frames. It looks ok but the graphics could have been way better. Also note Anti Aliasing is currently disabled in the beta so I hope when it goes live it will look better.
3) Open World pvp. I haven't partaken in it yet because I haven't reached that area but god do I hope it's fun. The instanced pvp is great, it's a lot of fun if you are doing it with an organized group but as we all know instanced pvp can get very old real quick. There is a free for all area called the smugglers den that is FFA pvp. I can go and kill my guildies if I find them there and will not hesitate to if they are a douche
After taking 3 Characters to level 20 I'd currently rate the game an 7.5 out of 10. It's more stable than most other games that I've beta tested.