For me the game was fun the moment I dove into character creation, and it was great as soon as I entered the game. D&D is about playing through modules and quests and is very story driven, it's different than the average MMO because it's following the D&D rules system. When the game first came out, there weren't any Dragons tho (Actually there was a joke on Penny Arcade about it even) now the whole starter experience is based on one even. D&D is about experiencing story and having fun along the way with very slow character progression. It's not the type of game where you try to quickly level up, but some people are so used to other systems in games they try to play this one the same way, and it's just not made to be played like that.

I agree with this. Most MMOs seem to be about grinding your way up to the level cap so you can get into the fun stuff. DDO feels like its designed to be more about the journey as opposed to the destination.

Yeah I've had a brief look at DDO this last week, and while it's far, far too early to say anything about its long-term appeal, I definitely found that it made a better first impression than a lot of MMOs I've tried.