I'll give some tidbits for those who don't want to read the whole thing, but it's a really great preview with lots of info if you're interested, and I definitely recommend reading it. 
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-23-guild-wars-2-hands-on
...
A good job, then, that Guild Wars 2 is the most exciting MMO we've seen in the last three years.
...
There have been other big-budget WOW rivals, but from Warhammer Online to The Old Republic, the best they seem able to muster is to keep pace with, or straggle just behind, Blizzard's relentless refinement of its flagship. For the first time, in Guild Wars 2, we have a game that is clearly and confidently a few strides ahead.
...
It's a question of flow. Combat is still hotkey-based, but faster and smoother and more streamlined, involving more movement and positioning. The levelling curve is now an almost flat line, replacing the epic ascent with a steady journey where content, not advancement, is king.
...
The word ArenaNet's staff keep returning to when discussing the game is "seamless", and it's not hard to see why. It's equivalent to what Naughty Dog achieved for the action-adventure with Uncharted 2, but on a far grander logistical scale. Guild Wars 2 is an MMO where you almost can't see the joins.
...
The class designs all have interesting twists. The Thief can steal items from any enemy that can be used against them as skills (steal a giant bird's feathers and throw them in its face to blind it); the Necromancer can summon and detonate crowds of explosive little minions (like Diablo III's Witch Doctor); the Guardian, a magical warrior, has attacks that are highly focused on positioning and different areas of effect, making it an unusually tactical melee class.
...
It's a fantastic system, offering huge flexibility but also streamlining and focusing your character, preventing the creep of dozens of buttons all over your screen that blights so many MMOs. Skills are mostly punchy and fun to execute, but their design is unproven. The principal worry is how team tactics will form in the absence of defined character class roles. ArenaNet assures us that interesting synergies exist, but we'll need to take that on trust; the clear advantage, though, is that players can fall into groups naturally without worrying about balanced composition.
...
Evolution becomes revolution with ArenaNet's decision to use events for the "mass" of Guild Wars 2's content, meaning you never have to pick up or turn in quests, and everything other than your personal story (more on this later) is inherently multiplayer. If you see something happening, you can take part in it; if someone else sees it, they can join you, and neither of you will be penalised for that.
...
"It gets people playing together," he says. "MMOs are supposed to be social games, and too often everyone's doing their own thing... It feels like we're building the first truly co-operative MMO." The team's motivation was "thinking back to the early days of MMOs, what were we all hoping MMOs would be? The promise of MMOs. And what we all hoped, I think what everybody still hopes today, is that it's really a world."
...
Playing one of the mid-level events – a centaur siege on a human village – I noticed that I wasn't reading text or looking at UI elements to see where I needed to go next, but simply watching where people (NPCs or players? It didn't seem to matter) were running, and following them. In Guild Wars 2 an invisible wall between the player and the world has simply been lifted away.
...
It's not that levelling is sidelined, but its importance has been deflated. Hence the flattening of the levelling curve after level 10, the skill deck system that prevents ballooning over-complication of the classes, a sidekicking system that will allow you to boost any friend to your level and a philosophy that "the endgame should not be different from the game you played to get to it," according to Flannum
...
The last, but very far from least weapon in Guild Wars 2's considerable arsenal is its stunning good looks. The art team led by Daniel Dociu has created a distinctive and sumptuously detailed fantasy world with sharp steampunk influences, sometimes colourful and homely, sometimes startling and otherworldly. Their aim is to give the whole game a "hand-crafted quality" and ensure that "any screenshot should feel like living concept art," Dociu says, and they're succeeding.
...
Since it's not fighting for your $15 a month, Guild Wars 2 can happily co-exist with World of Warcraft. The question, really, is whether World of Warcraft, in all its undeniable but ageing glory, can co-exist with Guild Wars 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking as great as ever! Hopefully they will launch it this year!
