Ok, played the game all weekend, Im at a little over 24 hours played.

The game currently has some issues with ATI cards. Nvidia works fine. Other than that... rather flawless release. (I guess I should say pre-release as its technically not out till tomorrow).

As for gameplay, its a hoot, I havent had this much fun since Asheron's Call. The FFA pvp is an absolute riot.

Linear gameplay... more or less, but not more than WoW. You quest in a zone, you move to the next rinse and repeat. There are three races, and you can do the quests in all three of them... so technically, you can get to 80 in stygian area, then make a new toon and get a completely different game in one of the other two races areas.

Questing in this game is different than WoW the zones feel huge (after you get out of tortage) and you can literally quest in one zone for upwards of 15 levels. If you thought WoW had a lot of quests AoC takes it to the extreme. You can also turn the zone your hunting in into an epic zone. Think Heroic instances in WoW accept an open zone. Imagine turning Outlands into a heroic, doing quests there and getting better loot and EXP.

I havent gotten to crafting or town building yet... but as I stated in beta there is no /follow so boxing is pretty much out.