I have an assassin and a marauder lvl 50, and I had the operative at lvl 33 just before leaving the game, and for me it was a pain in the *** leveling to 33, now im 42, the supposed "golden age" of the operative (40-50) , and I just .... feel forced to level it, because it bores me. Although I have to say ... the story rocks
MY whole idea when I started was: cool a dps with stealth and knives. I didn't even mind that the endgame dps was supposed to be under the normal standards. But now.... I find the DPS lacking in thrash mobs while I quest and the animations and fight style boring. So yeah, you stick a knife in the back of a guy. that's all the animation. And you are a hybrid, you can't only melee, you are like a mix and match between the shooter and the rogue.
I wondered why I didn't see operatives DPS in FP and HM. Now I have changed my perspective and I'm only going to use the operative as a healer. (and I'm leveling as a healer in PVP and FP)
Perhaps I'm used too much to use a "jedi" style of gameplay but.... in the end I'm just quite disappointed with my operative. We will see at lvl 50.