Khlaw

I can perfectly understand your feeling. Not just confirming every single point you made , but the worst part, we paid this junk. This is what drives me angry. The perfect common knowledge by anyone of us that all of us has just been scammed and this damned company is not gonna pay the proper price in a tribunal for sell this shit.

1.  I wouldn't want to be any bigger.  I take up enough of the screen as it is.  At some point you have to sacrifice the sanctity of lore for playability.

2.  This is a fairly new take on skills.  After years of games like WoW, I'm thrilled to have a cleaner UI, and actually find the overall combat experience to be deeper.

3.  Huge paradigm shift, I know.  I loved being an amazing healer.  I also hated being stuck healing all the time.  My engineer feels far more flexible and useful.

4.  You do get a lot handed to you very quickly.  We'll see if this impacts the staying power of the game.  It's possible that one of the reasons other games dole abilities out over a long period is to keep the learning curve manageable, as well as to give you a carrot to follow.  Progression in GW2 is going to be interesting over the long haul, and this is somewhere ANET took a huge risk.  But after the large handful of cookie-cutter MMOs I've played, I am more than ready to try something new.

Just noticed your numbering is repeating...  I'm going to stay in sequence...

5.  This doesn't bother me.  There are 3 archetypes, each with a different look.  Throw in the transmutation system and dyes, and my personal feeling is we're okay here.  I think that, overall, we have a LOT more variety than you find inmost launch titles, in terms of endgame gear.

6.  Where has farming been called exploiting?  Maybe I missed something.

7.  I really prefer waypoints to mounts.  Who would ever dismount to help,you quest or Rez you?

8.  I LOVE the downscaling system.  It means I can play with my wife, who hardly plays, or all of my guild mates.  It also means I can experience all of the content in a more or less authentic manner on all of my characters - and you do end up feeling powerful.  My 79 engineer can 1 hit a lot of the beginning content.

9.  Can't really disagree about the missing items.  All I can say is, this is a brand new game, and it is packed with a lot of innovative features.  At some point, the game has to start making a profit, since most game developers can't run in the red forever.  I want a lot of these features too, and ANET has committed to delivering some of them.  I don't see any of the missing items as game-breaking; at worst they are frustrating.

Obviously these are all my opinions, and they are no more or less valid than yours; I just happen to disagree with your premise and most of your supporting arguments.  FWIW, it sounds to me like you'd be a lot happier in a more traditional MMO, which is the one thing I was desperately looking to get away from.