Having played all three (playing FFXIV at the moment), I can see the strengths and weaknesses of each. Rating each game according to categories in a 5/5 scale.

Story/Lore Presentation: You can't compare which story is better because that would just be up to your preference. What you can compare is how it's presented. For this, I feel that the team of Square Enix really did a marvelous job at crafting a storyline that you can really feel that you're part of. While WoW doesn't have a direct personal storyline, you can see that the quests do run into each other and your character is still involved in a major way in every event. However, the GW2 team really failed on this subject because even until I reached max level, I had no clue what was going on, why there was a war, why am I doing specific quests (because you don't even need to talk to NPCs to get them), why am I engaging in PvP (because simply, there is no reason. It's a completely different mechanic that seems to just be tacked on to the main game).

FFXIV: 5
WoW: 4
GW2: 2

Combat Gameplay: Considering gameplay is also a bit difficult, because each game comes with its own specific style. However, what separates GW2 is that it doesn't rely on swing timers, giving you more of a real time feel to combat. In WoW and FFXIV, you're bound to get hit no matter what if you were in range when the enemy started his attack. This also carries in GW2's outstanding PvP system, where real skill can overtake gear. I particularly dislike FFXIV's telling you where special attacks are going to land; it makes the game too easy.

GW2: 5
WoW: 4
FFXIV: 2.5

Graphics: This one is clear to see, simply because WoW is so much older than the other two. Obviously, FFXIV's graphics are the most optimized, the most polished, and the most vibrant. The shadows are so impressive that I find myself looking at them through the trees of Gridania for minutes at a time. GW2 also has beautiful visuals but they are over a year old now, so they were optimized for last year's systems.

FFXIV: 5
GW2: 4
WoW: 2.5

Art Style: Having good graphics is one thing, but having good looking artwork is quite another. For example, while I give FFXIV the nod when it comes to overall graphical performance, its art, honestly, just sucks. The cities are blandly designed, the enemies look so generic, and the overall feel of the characters just seems off. On the other hand, even more than a decade later, WoW's locales and characters still mesmerize me. The armor design alone shows just how creative Blizzard is in decorating. GW2 also has a really unique, vibrantly colorful look, which comes in at a close second in my view.

WoW: 5
GW2: 4.5
FFXIV: 2.5

Character Role Design. In this, WoW is still the king and will serve as the standard for many more years to come. Dungeons are still the best in WoW because each class is truly unique in what they can bring to the table and they can achieve multiple roles depending on your choice of build. FFXIV took this one step further and allowed for one character to be any class they want, but this, in my view, has backfired a little bit because it makes you feel locked in to one character, when traditionally you would get fresh experiences with new alts. With GW2, I think that the design of no concrete roles, while unique, takes away from playing as a party. I mean, if you want to be a tough tanking character, it's rather useless because there's no such thing as threat or aggro. It also takes a lot away from your character's uniqueness, because every class seems to be marginally capable of doing everything else.

WoW: 5
FFXIV: 3.5
GW2: 2.5

Side Activities (Crafting, Mini-games, etc.): As always, Square does a wonderful job with side quests. In FFXIV, you don't even have to hit an enemy if you don't want to. There's so much complexity to the gathering and crafting in the game that sometimes, you find youself spending more time doing that rather than regular questing. The other games pale in comparison to the amount of dedication that FFXIV has put towards this. I mean, in GW2, you do have a lot of choices to craft, especially in cooking where there seems to be an endless number of ingredients, but its just still point and click and can sometimes be tedious. WoW's crafting is the most basic of the three.

FFXIV: 5
GW2: 4
WoW: 3

Music and Sound: All three are very good at implementing music that resonates with the area, but FFXIV takes the cake with their overall score. It's not really a surprise, but the score really makes the aforementioned bland environments kinda better. The sound effects and voices, however, do need a fair bit of an overhaul because they're so generic when compared to GW2 and WoW.

FFXIV: 4
GW2: 4
WoW: 4

Quest Structure: WoW's quest structure is still the best, in my view, not because it's innovative, but because it's solid and there's nothing wrong with it. While FATEs and real time world events are cute, they wear out on you very quickly because they're just the same events over and over and you find yourself farming them before long. The biggest offense is how GW2 operates its quests, wherein you don't even have to talk to anyone to know what to do and you're just told in a corner of the screen to do it; it just makes questing so meaningless and detached from the story of the game.

WoW: 5
FFXIV: 3.5
GW2: 2

I can't compare contents and endgame yet because the other two games have only been in the market for a short time. So:

WoW: 32.5
FFXIV: 31
GW2: 28

They're all good but WoW still wins.

Nice read.

It is too early for me to decide between wow or ffxiv. I do think though that the story you play in FF is a very very big plus over wow. I know there seems to be big lore in wow but it just isn't presented to you very well. You can play your character to 90 and still not have a clue about what's going on.

But all in all, wow does almost everything very very well. It's as polished as an mmo can get i guess.
It will take some time to see if FF can take wow's crown. Or at least a part of it.

Personally I don't think they will but they are off to a good start. The slow mechanics in combat will break this game for a lot of people though.

Good breakdown. Though something like this can't be completely unbiased (for instance, you and I disagree on FFXIV art score, I think it should've been higher), the compare and contrast format still gives a nice breakdown of these three games without being fanboyish for either one.

I played WoW for a short time, because I couldn't get into it. Haven't touched GW2. Was a 3 or 4 year FFXI player, so I've given FFXIV a try and am pretty happy with it so far. I was a little disappointed with how easy everything got since XI (I liked really having to make sense of a quest myself instead of killing marked off monsters, also I liked NMs), I can appreciated how steam-lined the game has become in terms of its UI and leveling. I'm glad I don't have to grind out several hundred mobs in one or two areas per level. Guess I have WoW to thank for that what with the experience questing. FFXIV is pretty much FFXI meets WoW, I suppose. Hope FFXIV continues to impress and keep me on for a long time to come.

Oh, and my 2 cents on a few of your points. I think that penalizing FFXIV 1.5 points for showing where the monster will hit (for special attacks) is a bit much considering the combat is still very engaging. 2.5/5 makes it seem just plain bad, but I find myself having fun during combat (which is more than I can say for WoW even though I will chalk that up to my taste not fitting WoW's style, not so much that WoW was doing anything wrong...it was just boring).

Also, even though I can understand you point about FFXIVs multiple classes on one character diluting the freshness of re-rolling a character, there are two major counterpoints to that. For one, each race (and even sub-race, like highlander vs lowlander or whatever it is) has different starting stats so in the end when people are playing to get the ultimate character, they'll choose a specific race because it fits a certain job better even if that race can do all jobs. Also, going through the story and events for multiple classes/jobs with one character not only avoids redundancy by having to do the same starting quests for each class, but it also makes the character feel like a part of its world and story exploring Eorzea. It feels more organic that simply re-rolling a character and possibly starting the game in the same zone as before with the same quests and same storyline to mull through all over again.

Well, the game is way too easy. that's pretty clear. I mean, you can run any instance as an idiot and wind up killing the boss without breaking a sweat. In WoW, early instances like Wailing Caverns and Stockades still produced wipes if your party wasn't careful. Solo questing is very boring because the enemies are too weak and as mentioned, my biggest gripe is how easily you can avoid special attacks that would have made the game a little harder.

Re-rolling a character is much more than just the quests or the story. It's the aesthetic of having a different looking character. If, for example, you're human and you decide to become a night elf, you feel completely different and everything's fresh. The little differences in starting stats mean nothing in the end game. I mean, what's 6 strength and 3 vitality for a tank? That's next to nothing.

I'm a beginner so I don't know exactly how easy everything in FFXIV is, but I will agree that the mobs that I have taken on are pretty easy so far.  I've seen videos and read wikis on higher level stuff (primals) and heard those fights could be fairly hard and require a good deal of tactics, but I don't know how that compares to WoW nor do I have first hand experience myself.

As for re-rolling a character, you can do the same thing in FFXIV if you want a different looking character albeit with a few caveats.  Either pay extra for a character (like a buck or 2, I forget) or I've read if you agree to pay 12.99 for 6 months (the normal monthly rate, but you're locked in for 6 months as a catch) you can have 8 characters and 40 max (versus the standard 1 character and 8 max) so rerolling on that scheme wouldn't cost you anything.  Even so, I get that WoW has more variation in its character design, but FFXIV is still young and has time to add more if it ever does.  Oh, and I was basing my comment about race stats on experience in FFXI.  Don't know if it will pan out the same way, but I can tell you for a fact that when a character reached 75 (and past with merits), the small base stat differences built over all those levels completely dictated how much better a race could be at a certain role (lalafell like race were superior mages, roeguhdyn like race were superior tanks, etc) with compariable equipment and player skills.  But if a player was really good at his/her role and had stellar gear, that'd negate the race advantage.  I'm guessing FFXIV wants to do something like this otherwise they'd not even bother having different base stats, but it's still early in the games life cycle and Square's got to get more content/polish/balance before they bring in more challenge.  Hopefully they do.

WoW totally doesnt win on my view. The game is dated and blurry and lately it was turned into a daily grind fest.

In my opinion only 3 MMORPG games are worth playing: SWTOR, TERA and FFXIV.

I already gave you the overview but i will say the quick conclusions in my opinion:

WoW: Animations are primitive, the graphics are blurry and uninteresting. Its a 10 year old game and it definitly shows. UI is a freaking mess. In this game addons are a necessity for the UI otherwise the game is completely unplayable at end-game (at a satisfactory level). The questing is now generic and the end-game is incredibly boring and grindy. Blizzard needs to do something big with this game if it wants to prevent it from crashing and burning.

GW2: The event system is amazing, but the combat is not very flexible despite what is told. End-game is almost non-existant and the game is surviving with temporary event and 8 bit jumping puzzles. Everything about the game is wrong. Dungeons are a joke, it all feels like a big zerg. Great game for 2 days, but then its over. Needs to be completely redesigned.

TERA: Awesome combat system, the best you can find on any MMORPG atm, by far. The questing is dull but the end-game dungeons are a joy. This game also beckons from your observation skills to survive. You have to learn how to read the enemies next movement so you can save your life. Once you learn how to do it it gives an immense sense of satisfaction. Some of the most impressive dungeon bosses i ever saw aswell. The downside? It had masochist system, in particular the enchanting system wich makes you waste your time for virtually little reward. The teleporting system is also clumbersome, you need scrolls for every place you teleport to.

SWTOR: Great storytelling and leveling. If you like the story you will have 8 to play through so theres reason to play alts and not be completely bored. Combat is an improvement over WoW but follows the same principles, except with better animations and a few more buttons to make the whole process more enjoyable. The problem? Despite 6 week patches the content never seems to be enough. You will run out of things to do unless you want to level those alts.

FFXIV: Main problem is the grinding and the combat. While visually appealing the combat in FFXIV is slow with a 2.5 GCD. You have abilities wich you use that are off the global cooldown, but you can only use once per global cooldown and there is an internal cooldown of 0.5 seconds after you use a regular skill before you can activate the ability. Its very clunky and unsatisfying. The design of the combat is not bad though, but the execution is lacking. Second is the grinding. Everything in the game is a huge grind. Especially battle classes after your first one cause you can only go through the regular quests once. The FATE/event system is satisfying but quickly tunrs into a necessary grind for your other battle classes. The Good? The overall design is great. Everything feels balanced and worthwhile in the end. Crafting classes for example seem to be the best way to gear up at end-game and are the way to get your best weapons, wich means that in the end, its meaningful. The crafting itself is quite a fun little mini-game, though the gathering is still boring. Either way i admire how FFXIV tries to move everything forward in its own way.

What i failed to mention aswell are what i found a big turn off with both TERA and FFXIV. Its the end-game community. When the end-game is challenging most players turn into outright bit*hes. Its very difficult to enjoy the game with such people, so you have to find a good guild if you want to enjoy the game.

In short:
WoW: Too dated, loads of content from 10 years.
GW2: Great initial fun, no appeal to stay.
TERA: Pretty good, but life sapping.
SWTOR: Good but struggling long-term.
FFXIV: Grindy but meaningful.

I'm not talking about paying for an extra character. I'm talking about the lack of support to reroll in the first place. Aside from what I mentioned, you can't even add your own characters to your friends list, meaning that you can't even send items to them. For example I wanted to have a blacksmith alt, and I plan to send him materials that I mine out in the world, I can't do that. It shows that Square has no plan of motivating you to reroll at all. I mean, in a game like this, why should you? You have all the classes in one character anyway. It's a rather silly enterprise that limits replayability.

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