Having dabbled with Vanguard on and off for a year or so I'm convinced there's a great game there for people that like "heavyweight" RPGs (i.e. lots of focus on exploring, needing groups and tactics etc). I just don't think that game will emerge until autumn. Give it 6 months of bug squashing, balance, tuning, polish and additions of content not ready in time for launch and it'll be a cracking game, it's just not quite ready for mainstream now (although it is emenently playable 99% of the time)...
Having said that they are doing daily updates at the moment so it's getting better by the day and bares no resembelence in terms of quality and gameplay to even a month/6 weeks ago. If you love your MMORPGs and can put up with a few problems you'll enjoy it. If you're looking for WoW levels of polish wait a month or two rather than spoil your first impressions.
The danger is, much like EQ2, that it'll get a bad reputation on release and later in the year, despite having the problems sorted and a good polish it won't recover. I'm told EQ2 is a stunningly good game now and has no resemblence to when it was released. Unfortunatly it's too late for it to have the chance of being the market leader the heritage of EQ1 suggested it could have been. IF EQ2 had of been released in the state it was even 6 months after original launch it would have given WoW a run for it's money.
SOE rushed EQ2 to launch at the same time (just before) WoW and cocked it up. Now they've rushed Vanguard to release at the same time as the expansion for the most popular MMORPG in the world. Someone at SOE really needs to be taken out side and given a good kicking...
There's some really nicely thought out stuff in Vanguard, and, it's taken a lot of the best from EQ1, 2 and WoW. It is a heavier weight RPG than WoW there's no doubt, but even in beta I've found that's a good thing in a lot of ways. If people approach it wanting to be Lvl 50 and regarding every other level as just getting in the way they'll end up grinding exp (never understood why people would do that) and won't enjoy it. If you take the time to enjoy each level, explore the huge continents and do the quests with friends you'll have fun.
You can solo but it's not the easiest way to play the game. I prefer the groups, and whilst it can be a pain in the backside it creates more of a community. In WoW I could play for an entire evening and never need to speak to anyone else which kinda defeats the point of an online rpg.
Still, even given the engine is still a heavily customised Unreal jobbie it the graphics are getting better by the day...
Just my 2c worth
** Screeny blatently nicked from someone else