World of Warcraft: Shadowlands First Impressions Is it good?

Welp. I'm two levels into World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion and I’m a bit disappointed thus far. Here’s why.. (Spoiler Warning)

Firstly as Horde, we’re forced into being Jaina’s errand boy despite the fact that we tried to end each other countless times essentially disregarding years of lore building for the sake of moving the plot along, the fresh concept of uniting to face a greater evil. Super fresh thinking.

We’re introduced to yet another hulking dumb brute of a villain in the Jailer. He not only sounds the exact same as previous baddies, his dialogue is so recycled and predictable I laughed out loud when he said “my army is vast and endless!” Hmmmm where have we heard that before? He makes his false threats and hurts Baine so we should despise him because he does the usual bad guy stuff. Zzzz... why can we never get a smart villain? One who’s two steps ahead, one who does everything they threaten to do, one who’s not just big, mean and scary. We then do something that no one in history has ever done! OMG we escaped the Maw! ... after being there for only 20min... just "oh shiny stone!" *click click* dueces.

Now that we are looked at as the messiah for being the only person capable of doing so, upon arrival to the new capital city there’s already tons of other players running around? Ummm... k. Essentially you have to suspend your own disbelief as NPCs gawk and whisper in amazement like you’re the only person to ever do it. Blizzard could have just had you phase into a solo instance until the portals to faction cities were created summoning additional champions of Azeroth.

The music is amazing and Bastion is pretty but after a few hours all I see is blue. The quests are a rehashing of years of outdated gameplay. Go here, click this item, come back, kill 10 animals in this area. Everything is just so predictable or maybe I’m just starting to think like Blizz game designer, either way it’s not fun and it’s hard to stay motivated when I know I’m just moving to the next area to do trivial task completion. Why are we picking flowers in Bastion while Green Jesus rots in ghost jail? Maybe I’m being overly critical and I do intend on continuing to play in hopes it gets much better and I eat all these words above. Do you think I’m off base with my first impressions of the prologue? (Still love Blizz, WoW) These are just my gripes with my current playthrough.