Easily the worst expansion WoW has had to offer thus far, but nowhere near as awful as some claim.
Understandably, much of the criticism against BfA is wrapped up in the elements that make it an MMO. It launched a grindy nightmare and much of its post-launch lacks real content and mostly just exists for dailies/weeklies/world quests. Nazjatar and Mechagon both look awesome, but their questlines can be completed in an hour, yet most of the time you'll spend in either place is getting lost in their arbitrary grind. Nazjatar even went so far as to timegate the player by forcing them to complete Follower dailies in order to continue its questline. At least Mechagon just lets the player finish its questline, but even then, that place is immensely tiny and has a lot of wasted potential. Even Visions, which are admittedly quite fun, are entirely a grind. To even do a vision, you need to grind dailies/weeklies, and then within the vision itself, you're grinding for different currencies.
So yes, BfA is a grindy hellhole, especially for those who played it during its retail period. But thankfully, most of those things can be avoided for anyone who jumps in now. There's nothing to grind anymore; now you can just enjoy the content for what it is.
And as far as the actual content of BfA, it's mostly OK. The Horde questlines is the biggest offender, as those zones range anywhere from meh to OK. But all of the Alliance zones are solid and were actually a joy to explore.
Dungeons are overall OK. Some just feel redundant and unexciting, others are solid. Mechagon is a great dungeon, had an absolute blast with that one. Freehold is also lovely, but yeah, this expac probably has some of the weakest dungeons in WoW so far.
The Raids are where BfA really stands out to me. The Eternal Palace was an absolute joy, and the fight against Azshara is probably my favorite moment from this expansion by far. It's a great experience. All of the other raids are quite good too, and I really enjoyed how different they each felt visually and thematically.
The story in BfA is absolute dogshit. Besides from enjoying Jaina's questline, this writing is shockingly weak. The fourth war is a mess of poor character motives and unsatisfying conclusions. No, Blizzard, I don't believe the entirety of the Horde (and especially my character) would stand idly as Sylvanas commits genocide???
I actually quite enjoyed the Heart of Azeroth system. I can imagine it was pretty awful at launch, as grinding for it probably made it exhausting. But now, the experience to level it up is constantly being thrown at the player. I didn't have to grind at all to get it to level 80, and really enjoyed messing with all the unique abilities, passive, and armor modifiers it provided.
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Overall, BfA is a fine expansion. It clearly failed to be an exciting MMO, as all of its "never-ending" systems suck. But the dungeons are fine, the raids are really fun, and the Alliance side was quite fun to play through. Boralus is also an awesome city.
This expansion probably really sucked at launch, but it's not too bad to go back to now. And of course, the story is still awful and the post-launch content is 90% grind.
Understandably, much of the criticism against BfA is wrapped up in the elements that make it an MMO. It launched a grindy nightmare and much of its post-launch lacks real content and mostly just exists for dailies/weeklies/world quests. Nazjatar and Mechagon both look awesome, but their questlines can be completed in an hour, yet most of the time you'll spend in either place is getting lost in their arbitrary grind. Nazjatar even went so far as to timegate the player by forcing them to complete Follower dailies in order to continue its questline. At least Mechagon just lets the player finish its questline, but even then, that place is immensely tiny and has a lot of wasted potential. Even Visions, which are admittedly quite fun, are entirely a grind. To even do a vision, you need to grind dailies/weeklies, and then within the vision itself, you're grinding for different currencies.
So yes, BfA is a grindy hellhole, especially for those who played it during its retail period. But thankfully, most of those things can be avoided for anyone who jumps in now. There's nothing to grind anymore; now you can just enjoy the content for what it is.
And as far as the actual content of BfA, it's mostly OK. The Horde questlines is the biggest offender, as those zones range anywhere from meh to OK. But all of the Alliance zones are solid and were actually a joy to explore.
Dungeons are overall OK. Some just feel redundant and unexciting, others are solid. Mechagon is a great dungeon, had an absolute blast with that one. Freehold is also lovely, but yeah, this expac probably has some of the weakest dungeons in WoW so far.
The Raids are where BfA really stands out to me. The Eternal Palace was an absolute joy, and the fight against Azshara is probably my favorite moment from this expansion by far. It's a great experience. All of the other raids are quite good too, and I really enjoyed how different they each felt visually and thematically.
The story in BfA is absolute dogshit. Besides from enjoying Jaina's questline, this writing is shockingly weak. The fourth war is a mess of poor character motives and unsatisfying conclusions. No, Blizzard, I don't believe the entirety of the Horde (and especially my character) would stand idly as Sylvanas commits genocide???
I actually quite enjoyed the Heart of Azeroth system. I can imagine it was pretty awful at launch, as grinding for it probably made it exhausting. But now, the experience to level it up is constantly being thrown at the player. I didn't have to grind at all to get it to level 80, and really enjoyed messing with all the unique abilities, passive, and armor modifiers it provided.
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Overall, BfA is a fine expansion. It clearly failed to be an exciting MMO, as all of its "never-ending" systems suck. But the dungeons are fine, the raids are really fun, and the Alliance side was quite fun to play through. Boralus is also an awesome city.
This expansion probably really sucked at launch, but it's not too bad to go back to now. And of course, the story is still awful and the post-launch content is 90% grind.