Absolutely the most unfun expac there is to date… shadowlands is way to time consuming making it hard for most players that work or don’t have free time to play punishing for alts as well and it does not feel rewarding there simply not enough content in the game at the moment even gameplay is clunky were most classes are ok and improved most fall behind. I use to remember a time in bfa or even legion i had the most fun in the game by feeling powerful as i made my toon stronger with rewards gear …titenforging… warforge… even uncapped aoe… now i feel like a wet noodle unless you play a ranged class because for some reason they are untouched i guess blizz didn’t decide to punish them honestly idk if blizz thinks punishing players even punishing melee classes or making dead content is a good thing there just ruining there own game at this point its kinda disgusting
If you enjoy playing it, then it isn’t 'bad. Other players have various opinions, that really only apply to them. I assume you started in late BFA due to you achieves. So you will see the game differently than someone who played for 15 years. To me it seems bad for alts. Some things are OK for alts, but just the massive amount of chores that seem required, like doing the covenant campaign and toreghast seem too time consuming. Legion had quests for each class, but they were fun and didn’t take too long, unless you wanted to earn the mount etc. I still haven’t done that. But just getting an alt up to LFR level seemed much easier in the past. I wouldn’t say it is bad. I like SL, but I am not having fun repeating the same content over and over. It seemed better before. Anima should drop more freely and be account bound for starters.
I wouldn’t say it’s bad, persay…
There’s just lots of stuff that could be improved dramatically. Example: covenants…should be aesthetic only. Conduits: why do we need to farm something our character should already do?
Torghast: make it a challenge mode, and optional, not mandatory.
PvP, bring back pvp stats, forget vers.
Probably more but I’m drawing a blank
Only things I dislike about it so far is unrated bgs don’t scale and the story is pretty terrible. Other than that it’s fine.
The same thing that makes any game good or bad, opinion 
Of which you’ll have to form your own 
Where to start…: Too grindy (you farm currency/rep then farm MORE currency/rep? That’s a stick on a stick, not a carrot.), both story lore and gameplay wise covenants make no sense with their exclusivity to other covenants, the new covenant abilities simply don’t replace the stuff we had in MoP &or WoD and Legion, etc… it’s just not their A effort and after BFA that’s not exactly a morale booster… these are fundamental problems that WoW has dealt with for about 4 expansion by now (jarring misplaced lore, poor RP elements, etc), but the biggest thing is that SL really doubled down on a lot of stuff that made BFA a dumpster fire.
No not even close WoD was way worse as was bfa.
Rating requirement to upgrade conquest gear.
Everyone posting here is subbed so can’t think it’s that bad - you’re going to get a pretty biased sample. The people that quit since SL release and likely have a more negative answer can’t answer.
Some of us payed our subscriptions in advance and still have time on them.
I’ve only just finished leveling an alt to 60. I haven’t done any of the end-game content and I’ve barely touched a Covenant. Since I haven’t really explored it enough, I can’t really give a full review.
Personally I think it was a mistake to go to the Shadowlands. I’d rather leave that lore to mystery. None of the new characters feel engaging to me, not even a character that I love to hate. It also just feels way too depressing. Maybe I’d like Shadowlands as a side-adventure to an expansion but the idea of being here for a few years is pretty demoralizing.
I’m not on the “I quit” hyperbole bandwagon but I’m definitely avoiding the Shadowlands as much as I can. I want to play WoW to laugh, be entertained and get lost in an adventure. WoW has mostly been that for me, till now.
I don’t PvP or raid, so I can’t really contribute anything to that.
Woah I didn’t catch that for some reason. That’s awfuuulll 
It’s certain not optimal for people who prefer world content. You have leveling up and WQs.
So basically Groupfinder of Instancecraft.
It’s fun the first time through…
Then you realize there is nothing different when you run your first, second and third alts. Let’s not forget that WQ grinding start within 8’ish hours of leveling. 8’ish hour of repeating the exact same thing you already did just to do the same WQs over and over.
This is by far the laziest expansion and the more egregious example of Blizzard’s “Wash, rinse and repeat as needed” game design.
TBC all the way!
I think the size of the ilvl gap in pvp gear “tiers” or whatever you call them is probably too big. That’s my one complaint.
I was really excited for the expansion after a deep disappointment with BFA. I belong to a social guild with aspirations of raiding 
From that perspective I enjoyed the raid, one of the better first raids, and enjoyed the time we had to complete it at normal. Unfortunately, we ran into usual Guild issues around time and attendance etc. However, time to complete the raid before the next one was not an issue. If I didn’t have to drop out of raiding I’d be enjoying clearing Heroic, and easily finish that before the next.
I also like that I didn’t have to do Mythic+ to be able to raid effectively. Mythic+ is a system I do not enjoy. I’m not in racing. I’m not sure what you could do to alter the difficulty of dungeons without the need to race to the end boss, but I’m certainly open to that happening. I do appreciate that for those who do enjoy Mythic+ that the rewards for such have been underwhelming. If that can be tuned so people feel adequately rewarded without it being a must for raiders, that would be ideal for me.
I seem to be constantly disappointed by crafting in the last number of expansions. I want it to be THE core driver of the economy in such a way that I don’t feel annoyed with doing rep grinds to advance my ability to craft. I want catch-up mechanics to be tied to crafting. I think I need to think about this more, as I’m not expressing exactly what I want out of it accurately. I also want there to be merit with my skills being desired by those leveling.
I am, again, disappointed by the quality of world content. For me, I find it completely uninspiring and only loosely connected to the meta-narrative. I wish world content was lots of better-quality side-stories that fleshed out the main. I want it to give me details of the history and geography of the place, and I want it’s rewards to be reflect the time you are spending doing it. Don’t make things artificially long just to “fill” an otherwise lack of content.
I am very, very tired with the dev teams design ideology seeming to be focused on systems I don’t really find inspiring. I’d much prefer resources spent developing and constantly fixing systems, to be spent on the quantity and quality of world content, including making more compelling stories.
As a former fan of the Banshee Queen, the narrative that has anything to do with that series of revisions, leaves me sad. She went from complex and conflicted, to single-focused death (that word we aren’t allowed to use in these forums), faster than the spread of the scent of a fart in an elevator. I also deeply resent having to buy things outside of the game to understand the narrative of the game. I appreciate I might be in a minority but I just don’t find the writers of WoW novels very good. O.k. for the most part, but not good enough where it might override my dislike of my subscription not providing everything I need as a lore nerd.
The alt leveling experience is significantly better than it was last expansion, but I don’t think it’s there yet. The intro in The Maw for this expansion was o.k. the first time around, it rapidly became annoying and I wondered since I had already opened up the Oribos-Azeroth connection on my main, why my alts didn’t just go straight there? I think low-level leveling still needs work…I’d love it to be that you get through an entire expansion leveling from 10-max, not cut short. I appreciate that might be a difficult ask, especially as the game grows more, but leveling still feels ‘out-of-whack’ as a result.
The Maw is just underwhelming and definitely not scary/nerve-wracking like I thought it might be. Torghast looked better in Alpha and Beta than in the actual - how does that happen? That should be a big no-no.
The narrative feels half-baked. I’ve felt this for a number of expansions now. I don’t know who you could employ to improve the story-telling in game, but it needs doing. I suspect that it is largely a visually-driven narrative, movie writers or playwrights might be the go-to. Given the CEO/other execs of Activison-Blizzard’s ridiculous compensation package though, money doesn’t seem to be the problem.
Which brings me to my last criticism which is not related to the expansion per se. I tire of giving my money to a company which treats the people that actually make the company money so poorly. I tire of hearing of support teams who actually communicate with the playerbase being laid off, while the company records record profits. If WoW were the only company in the gaming world I might think game developers were by nature, poor communicators and criticism averse. Given I’ve seen better elsewhere, I wish the game I’ve given by far the most money, did better.
The base expansion is the best we’ve had since WOD. The content patches will determine its fate. So they better be good.
Oh my goodness. How did I not see this before??
There’s no way Sylvanas doesn’t know about Kel seeing that she’s buddy-buddy with the Jailer. Realistically she would want nothing to do with the guy, and nothing to do with anyone who works with him either. This is incredibly stupid. Just when I thought the Night Warrior arc leading to heck nowhere was bad, they find a way to sink even lower.
Companies do this all the time. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
More proof in the world of products gone sour from changes than products gone sour from not changing. Think about it. Coke? Bleach? Cars? Guns?
Most changes are bad. You can easily iterate over an established game formula and pull lots of revenue. CoD is exactly that game.
Though it may seem minor, this is a big one for me. I hate how if I want to go to another zone, it’s quickest to hearth back to my Covenant, port to Oribos and then fly to the zone. Opposed to just flying to the zone from my existing zone. (Pair that with Oribos not liking my PC when I fly into it via Flightpath and its ugh)
Outside of that, my annoyances with Shadowlands are fairly minor. I don’t really have an issue with the whole "“ripcord”(or lack there of) because I’m perfectly happy picking my Covenants for the aesthetic. I’ll also acknowledge that I’m a minority on that. Though I do wish I had Unholy Transfusion(I think its called?) or Mind Games for my Shadow Priest, but…Kyrian wings, too strong.
Beyond that, the way they’ve treated World Quests is depressing. All throughout Legion and BFA, it was relaxing to just piddle around knocking WQ’s out while listening to music or goofing off with friends in Discord. Now, the vast majority of WQ’s are so tedious and anti fun. Which feels bad.
Oh, I also hate doing the RSVP quests each week. Mostly just for that dang bear.(Yea I know, it stops at Best Friend when they are permanently RSVP, and you can buy lots of the things to trade so you have the berries ready and waiting). But its still annoying.
The linear story doesn’t help either. I enjoy leveling alts but I honestly can’t stand Bastion. Plus, when leveling alts, you usually hit 60 before you finish Ardenweald. Which is a shame, cause Revendreth is nifty. Wish they’d add another option. “Normal Story”, “Threads of Fate” and “Non linear story”(IE, pick your zones, like we were able to do for Legion and BFA).