Just to make sure I understand you correctly, I'm interpreting "premium" as being equivalent to DDO's "premium" - as in, not subscribed, but buying things like content packs off the cash shop.

In which case, I totally agree. I capped one character and tried to look into endgame, but the reality is that endgame is really geared towards subscribers. There's no way to permanently unlock access (i.e. DDO content packs), you have to buy temporary keys or something like that. I'm not a fan of subscriptions as I don't think MMOs give 1/4 of a game's worth of content every month, and I certainly don't like buying temporary tokens to access content.

The single player questing can be just as boring as it is in most MMOs that follow that model - there's just a lot more excitement in grouping, as DDO showed us all - but SWTOR's saving grace is that it's motherfucking Star Wars... and they did a great job of capturing that feel. My wife could identify what the game was about from the sounds - "what are you playing? It sounds like Star Wars!" I have fond memories of tooling around on Tattooine and Hoth - just amazing planets that they really captured the feel for.

I think their combat system is amazing, but I understand why some people don't like it. It's all about (mouse) button combos - you know, tap tap hold, tap hold tap, that kind of thing. DCUO has similar single player questing issues but the variety of combat makes it more bearable. Super movement is really cool, too - being able to fly, speed run, or grapple your way through the world is really fun.

I found myself DLing DCUO last night. Maybe I'll be playing again sooner than I thought.