I think the new player experience is actually pretty good. I would say it's one of the stronger parts of the game. It does take a long time for someone to get caught up but there's plenty of content that they can play along the way and a huge back catalogue of stuff to do.

The cracks start to show once someone has been at max level for a few expansions and realises that every expansion has the same cookie-cutter formula cut, pasted, and drip-fed at a snail's pace. And with more of the rough edges sanded away each time, so it just feels like you're playing through increasingly simplified versions of the exact same thing.