For the most part, yes it is. The game is visually stunning, has more story and quest material in it than I've ever seen, and packs it all into an excellent interface. The music, the art, the story, everything is as good or better than previews had indicated. In fact, the least appealing aspects of the game are some of the conceits that it inherited from MMORPGs as a genre.

The story, whether you are Horde or Alliance, takes up shortly after the events of Warcraft III: the Frozen Throne. Both sides are decimated after the previous war with the otherworldly invading forces of the Burning Legion, and your character is immediately enmeshed in the efforts to rebuild his or her faction. From there, each race and class has a wealth of story and history that are conveyed through the innumerable quests of the game. The quests cover a wealth of topics and activities, and all are optional. The story is never forced upon you, but once you start to sample it you may not be able to tear yourself away.

WoW takes the visual style that has evolved in the Warcraft franchise and paints a whole world with it. From snow-covered mountains to lava drenched caves, from diminutive gnomes to massive taurens, this is a game that has style. The only low point of this aspect of the game is the character creation interface, which may seem a bit anemic compared to some other MMORPGs. A shortcoming I was more than willing to overlook after exploring some of the fields and forests of the game.

Sound and music for WoW are also expertly executed. The music for the different areas is well done but easily ignored, and there are a few tracks that stand out. The ambient sounds though, from NPC voices to animal sounds, water, flame, and spells - all of it is top notch. The extra layer of artifice they provide makes WoW that much more immersive, that much more real.

The interface is well done, and will feel familiar to anyone who has played some of Blizzard's other games. There is also official support for interface mods and a tool provided by Blizzard to make it easier should you feel the need to make changes. Built in support for more than one quick bar of skills would have been nice, as you will run out of room when you start getting higher in level, but it is currently available in several custom UI mods.

The mechanics of the game is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of WoW. Some things, like the increasing complex crafting skill system, the need to 'retrieve' your corpse after death, and the durability aspect of items, are ideas that seem to have crept in from other MMORPGs. While I realize that these tropes are considered par for the course in the genre, I'd hope Blizzard could find a better way to address them. Other things, like the arbitrarily small size limit for groups and the somewhat static fighting system feel like odd areas of roughness in this otherwise smooth playing experience. These shortcomings seem all the more disappointing given some of the more innovative features that are in WoW, like the in-game mail system (which allows a freedom of use that approaches the real world post) and the ability to share quests. For the most part, the good outshines the bad though, and once you get going very little can jar you out of the fun that is playing this game.

World of Warcraft is an excellent game, and is easily one of the very best of the current MMORPG market. It doesn't break as much new ground as perhaps it could, but time spent polishing the game really carries through in the playing experience. I can see myself enjoying this game for a long time, and I can't wait to see what kinds of content Blizzard has planned to add in the future.