Was excited for the game, played it while the novelty was high then gave it up. Thanks for the short but fun enough ride
I progressed to level 50 with a bounty hunter, then several other characters to mid 20s-30s. What I noticed was that once I did the story and went through the stages with my first character, the other ones felt pretty much the same.
The story was fantastic; excellent for a video game, but the class line is maybe 20% of your characters missions, most of the other missions were the same for all classes. It just got to be too much after a while, and it got a little repetitive.
What stood out, and withstood the test of repetition were the group missions and flashpoints. I always enjoyed playing with others, and completing missions with other classes made it worth while.
The graphics were just right for this type of game, no complaints. It ran well, but my machine can handle games like this. Servers used to have bad population queues, but they were sorted out and I never experienced them again after a couple of weeks after launch. That being said, the population of servers felt a little low, and their instancing made cities feel barren at times. Sometimes I would be on planets with 10-20 people on the entire thing. Though most missions could be completed alone - it made the group missions difficult to complete at higher levels (40+).
Crafting was interesting, but it was useless because your character would never use the items for very long. Mine would outgrow the items quickly, or find better ones in no time. Also money was abundant so the auction house or private sales were easy to negotiate.
The companion system was also interesting. It made leveling easier, quicker and added some variety to the mix.
My biggest complaint (of my knowledge pre patch 1.2) has been with PvP. It was a complete let down in the long run. It's what you come to expect from MMOs who don't want to innovate but imitate. The arenas got boring after a while because it was a hollow experience. Sure it's fun to blast and dominate and feel good about your characters stats. But after a while, you realize that there isn't much consequences to your actions.
I keep comparing my PvP experiences to the one MMORPG for which I have very fond memories playing; Dark Age of Camelot. The game is old and dated, and I'm sure a lot of people couldn't stand the leveling in that game after having played quicker paced games like WoW and even TOR, but the Realm Vs Realm (RvR) and the Battleground system (BG) in that game was phenomenal.
There was meaning to your struggle in the battlegrounds and in RvR. You'd conquer castles and they would bring bonuses to your realm and to your guild. You felt compelled to fight, not just for leveling your character, but to help your realm; there was realm pride.
That was a good feeling, and unfortunately I haven't felt that way about another game since then, and TOR, which had the potential to create a great conflict between Empire and Republic, took the easy route. That's not to say that the PvP as we know it doesn't have its merits, just look at the love for it in games like WoW and Rift and you'll see. But Bioware did not go for innovation here.
All in all, the game was a lot of fun for the first month, and for that I am glad I played it. It just wore off very quickly for me, and I no longer felt the desire to play. I hope it works out, because I love Star Wars, and I'd like Star Wars to be a profitable franchise in other future games.
I'll keep following the game to see if there are any changes over the months, but as it stands, I don't think I'll be re-subscribing.
I hope this was an objective review for potential players.