I'm one of these gamers who idealizes transparency, not NDAs, so I have no problem sharing with my readers my thoughts on Star Wars: The Old Republic's beta. Plus, the game comes out in two months. Who gives a shit about an NDA?

The Good
BioWare boasts SWTOR's story above all else, which is fair to trumpet with the amount of voice acting and character choice. Much like Mass Effect and KOTOR, players get to choose what they want to do within a dialogue tree. Should you let this NPC live or die? How will your superiors react to your decision? It's all part of a mechanic to make the quest experience more immersive, and for the most part, it works.
It's nothing ground breaking, because Blizzard showed how much fun story can be with Cataclysm, but the opportunity to offer your own unique spin on the quest events through your dialogue choices does make it more interesting than other games.
I chose to play as a Sith Warrior. Despite my love of BioWare, I felt the story of my character's rise from acolyte to Sith was very dull. There just wasn't anything interesting and I grew tired of every Sith NPC feeling the need to talk trash tiresome. "Yeah, yeah, I know Mr. NPC, you're the greatest Sith ever. No one can defeat you. Blah, blah, blah."
Outside of my class storyline, I was able to participate in a flashpoint. A flashpoint is a dungeon, basically.
I teamed up with a group of Sith and we proceeded onto an Imperial ship, where we encountered a Republic ship. Battle ensued and it was delightful. It was interesting how everyone in the group could take part in the narrative story. I had to be the first time in an MMO where everyone in my group was paying attention to the story.
The story was exciting. First, we had to deal with a Sith captain who directly disobeyed an order from a Grand Moff. Does he live or does he die? Then we had to defend our ship against Republic troops who were boarding us. Then, we boarded them. Eventually taking on a Jedi before catching the Republic's captain. Does he live or does he die? It was our choice.
It was an interesting dungeon because it had us running back and forth from the bridge. It didn't feel like the same ol' same ol' dungeon run where you run along the singular path until the end.


The Bad
Outside of the narrative, SWTOR doesn't provide anything that we haven't really seen before. For some this isn't a bad thing, but for me, I expect a lot more out of the creativity of BioWare. To see that I still needed to visit a class trainer to buy skills was disheartening. This has never been a system that has proven to be anything more than a waste of time and inconvenience to player's coin purses.
Health recharges slowly outside of combat, which my Sith Warrior could increase due to an ability.
While most of the voice acting was good, some were not. Vette, the first companion that the Sith Warrior meets up with, is atrocious. Had there been an option to kill her, I would have in a heartbeat.


The Pixelated
I don't find SWTOR's Clone Wars-like graphics appealing. I eventually started to get used to them, just as was the case in WoW. Besides that, there was a lot of texture popping and it usually took a while whenever I got in a dialogue situation for the graphics to load properly.
Of course, this is just a beta client. It's safe to assume that graphical performance will be streamlined for launch, but that is just an assumption.
Another thing is that every Sith Warrior that I saw looked just like me. There was an extremely limited amount of clothing options and there is no dressing room feature or alternative appearance option, both of which should be standards in the genre.


My Final Thoughts
SWTOR isn't bad, but it isn't anything flashy nor special either. It's merely there, taking up space in the MMO genre.
BioWare isn't setting out to do anything drastic with the genre like ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2, but what they've created in SWTOR does in fact work. If you love Star Wars, then you'll enjoy SWTOR. If you're like me and you enjoy Star Wars but aren't a fanboy, then you may find yourself bored.
From what I saw, I'm still unconvinced that I will purchase the retail client when it launches late December.
I didn't get to do any PvP and I didn't get to see any space combat, both of which could be selling points to me. Having not tested those areas, I'm still on the fence.
I think SWTOR could be entertaining and worthwhile for someone who enjoys having a little narrative impact on the world around them, but that's about all.