You don't have to play all of the game's content to know whether it hooks you or not. I remember starting ffxi sometime around 2006. I was hooked within a few days. It had nothing to do with endgame difficulty or anything else that I had no idea about yet. It came from the sheer immersiveness of the open world, and the high work level per reward that made it so realistic. I played FFXIV in beta and I started it again a couple of months ago. After playing for a few weeks and giving it the benefit of the doubt at every turn, I still felt none of this. I was able to walk away cold turkey and feel nothing. And that is essentially enough to judge a game on. Because at relaunch if it's still unable to provide the hook that ffxi did, it's likely not going anywhere. People won't sit around giving it the benefit of the doubt in hope of a better future like many of us are now. They won't make judgments based on how difficult moogle ifrit fight is. It will be a subconscious decision based on a variety of subtle factors they're exposed to in the beginning of the game.

Now, maybe I'm predisposed, but I wonder how many other people it continues to fail to hook. And I look at xi that did it so well... And yeah, I'd still go back to XI after 3 years if it was still XI. Time sink be damned. Maybe I couldn't accomplish much in the two hours I could play, but at least I couldn't accomplish everything in that time.