Well, I have been playing for approximately three weeks. My brother is the one who was petering and pestering, until I finally broke down and bought the Battle Chest. I have 4 characters right now: Nicappa (14lvl Gnome Fighter (Fury Spec)), Blundergruff (7lvl Tauran Hunter), Enrisi (5lvl Blood Elf Rogue), and HHavoc (5lvl Human Paladin). All on Kargath.
I have played WoW, Guild Wars, and HG:L, and can tell you that Guild Wars was, and still is my favorite. Not just because of the free play, that is a perk, but I feel that GW is more storyline driven than WoW. The other thing that it, and HG:L, has is the fact that when a player leaves a "hub", they are thrown into their own instance, only other party members show up. That, I thought was, and is, a great idea.
I will admit. WoW is very fun, and now that I have been playing it, I see how HUGE it really is. I still play GW, not as much as I play WoW, as I am awaiting the release of GW2, but my characters still get play their.
~Slayton