Having played Ultima Online (very briefly), Asheron's Call (4-5 years), Asheron's Call 2 (1-2 months), World of Warcraft (3-4 years), Lord of the Rings Online (1-2 months), Everquest 2 (1-2 weeks), Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (1 month), Age of Conan (1-2 weeks), and now Aion for several weeks, I can say that it's a good game, but far from perfect (in my mind).
The launch was VERY smooth compared to many games (2-3 hour waits are nothing compared to days or weeks with servers down due to various overloads, hardware problems, and bugs), and quests and tutorials are pretty straight forward and intuitive. The UI isn't bad, and combat could be far worse. My only major complaints are the lack of immersion (I don't feel compelled to stay up another hour just to get a bit further or see what's deep inside that cave over there) and the horrible gibberish (or Korean?) characters say when casting spells and whatnot.
While I will agree that the game looks like a grind fest, it doesn't feel any worse to me than WoW is now. In the early days of WoW, everyone seemed focused on doing something fun. These days, everyone seems focused on getting to the "end game" as quickly as possible and getting decked out in the best items (or achievements, or mounts, or pets, etc.) they can. Grind mobs and quests until 80 (I considered doing quests grinding once you've already done the same one more than twice), then grind rep / dungeons / crafting / etc. to get geared for raiding. THEN grind raid instances for better gear. Then grind MORE raid instances for even better gear. And it continues from there. Ugh. WoW started to bore me right after I hit 60 and got my fill of Scholo, Strath, DM, UBRS, and later MC, BWL, ZG, and AQ. When BC came out, it was fun for a little while, but it quickly took a turn for the worse when I realized it would just be another gear grind-fest at 70. WotLK is what finally did it in for me when I realized Blizzard has no intentions of changing the mechanics of the end game, and everyone else seems to enjoy it.
Coming from Asheron's Call and the early days of WoW where people just did stuff because it's fun (leveling up and getting gear was just a pleasant side effect), I think the problem with most MMOs today is the fact that everyone thinks the goal is to get to the highest level and have the best equipment, and not to enjoy every second of play time. Why play a game, and especially pay for it, if you're not going to actually enjoy playing? If I felt like joining something where someone dictated where I had to be and what I was going to do between certain hours, I'd go joined the armed forces.
Edit: I have no intentions of insulting the armed forces or comparing their duties to a video game, it's simply a statement.