Guild Wars 2 Beta (2012) (PC) (ArenaNet)
2I pre-ordered Guild Wars 2 on a whim several months ago; largely because it's just about the only upcoming MMO for which there seems to be some genuine excitement this late in the genre's life cycle (also, it's neither subscription-based nor a free-to-play title). I played an hour or two of the previous beta event but was deterred by an unoptimized frame rate and had other non-online games at the time which I really needed to prioritize.
Though the technical side hasn't been improved a great deal in time for this weekend's beta, I've now checked out the game a bit more and it seems rather OK. To me the single most important aspect of GW2 is that the fast-paced and comparatively timing-focused combat system feels much more engaging and "real" than the detached clickfest which constitutes the "gameplay" of most MMOs (including SWTOR, which was otherwise rather ambitious and impressive). GW2's world appears to be enormous and at least reasonably detailed, with decent rewards for exploring the different areas and finding new settlements, quests and dungeons. And maybe this has been a standard MMO feature for a long time, but I also like how the obligatory fetch quests both combine a range of different activities into the same assignment (in order to provide variety and lessen the tedium) and don't clog up the quest log with unnecessary filler material since they disappear immediately when you leave the quest area.
To be honest, though, I wouldn't be surprised if even a decent subscription-free MMO like GW2 will ultimately suffer the same fate as singleplayer mid-tier titles such as Two Worlds II, Divinity II and Kingdoms of Amalur did; i.e. they're not bad games at all but I also don't see any particularly compelling reason to actually play through them - especially not when I could just as easily create a new character in one of my favorite ARPGs such as Skyrim, Fable II, Borderlands or even good old MM6...