Why are so many people saying this game is bad?

Lots of tldr here. I find this game pretty average. It's like they didn't know they were making an mmo. You're left with people pressuring you to space bar content whenever you group. Unsubbed.

Ladies and gentlemen, your SWTOR fanboy community in a nutshell.

This game isn't bad.

Dude you read my mind

Imho the lvl curve is to shallow. The quests and voicovers are very well done, but it is all accessed to easily. There is plenty of room for sandbox type elements to be added in between the storylines if everything was slowed down, and hardened up, a bit.

While it is nice to have content that can be soloed, the complete removal of depth to cater to soloers ruins the immersion that is needed for mmo addicts such as myself. Fast lvl'ing should require groups, solo lvl'ing should require a grind. Otherwise it is not an mmo.

Pesonally, I would prefer that while solo each planet would be a struggle to finish, and that I would have to use my determination, or find a group, to access and complete the quests there. The heroics and fp's are very well done, but these seem like multiplayer options added to a single player game.

It's not the game that's the problem, it's the people who think this is WOW 2.0.

Frankly I'd prefer less bitter jaded hardcores, and more folks who are new to MMOs.

Because once you get past the cut scene's and voice acting it's another WoW clone.

And WoW was just an Everquest clone.

But everquest had a real biological father and a mother called Ever and Quest. And when Ever and Quest joined in holy matrimony Everquest was born. But then the Evil scientist called Snowstrom captured and cloned Everquest and gave birth to a monster called Atrocious the Cruel, who slaved 10 million people into thinking that he was Everquest. But every now and then Everquest would come out of his hiding hole and wag his tail to free the people.

But Atrocious the Cruel didn't take into account the brother of Everquest The Old Republic. The old republic was so powerful that no amount of computer specs could run it. And so The Old Republic killed Atrocious the Cruel and became the champion of the people. But Everquest was jealous to The Old Republic and cloned himself and Became Everquest II. But then Atrocious the Cruel was resurrected by the power of The Old Republic, because he felt sad about what he had done to Atrocious and together they killed Everquest and Everquest II.

But then this beautiful lady called Tera came before Atrocious and The Old Republic and they started fighting who would get to marry her. And fighting still continues to this day although eons have passed from that day forward...

...and nothing is bad with a "clone", if you copy well, especially basic features like a working and scaling UI...

All MMOs have a simple pattern -> increase the ingame power of your character - at best with some items/skill/abilities [insert function], not everybody has (all MMOplayers want to be somewhat special, even roleplayers)- and create the path to power in such way, that time effort and motivation balance each other. The flavor of the month is "cinema"-questing.

I agree somewhat, if people say that SWTOR is a raw diamond, there are lots of features (dark/light side system, companion crafting, creating your own epic recipes by reconstructing, atmospheric questing, social ranks, space travel + space fight), which are really promising, but need more detail work and development.

...but releasing a pretty unfinished and untested game in the year 15 after UO wasn't a good move from BW, really. People are with good reason angry about the beta state of the game at release. In my case it's not the game itself, it's the technical state of the game.

The argument "WoW needed years to provide all the utility and stableness as it has now", is getting old and it's wrong. Nowadays such bugs like HK47 in the factory or this shame of an UI must not be in a MMO game on release, simple at that.
People aren't amazed about half a year fixing bugs and design flaws and then waiting another half year for fixing and evaluating class balance and class mechanics in PvE and PvP (one of the biggest and most time intensive topic in MMOs) and besides that, BW has to come up with new content (tested and as bugfree as possible, please...)

In my case...I am still here, but my patience isn't endless.