whats wrong with wow?

[Quanta]

It's actually not that much of a mistery. It's the theory of mainstream. Popularity isn't often affected that much by quality. TV has several similar example. Just look at the big brother and similar trashy reality shows. Their quality is zero, but millions upon millions of people wouldn't miss an episode.

Reality TV's a poor example given our species' love of spectacle:
The media realizes this, and they act accordingly, producing shows and whatnot that cater to the idea. Everyone loves a good train wreck, whether they'll admit to it or not.

Games are a bit different though. Nobody will hunker down and play a train wreck of a game unless:

1) it's otherwise well designed and fun, and if it's well designed and fun, it's difficult for it to qualify as a train wreck, or
2) it's so bad that you simply have to play it so that you can make fun of it.

WoW, if anything, qualifies as #1 because, whether you want to admit it or not, it's a well designed and fun game, and Blizzard has taken great care to ensure that they can please as many people as possible without having all the hardcore players jump ship because it's too easy, or all the casual players jump ship because it's too hard.

As far as whether WoW is easy mode or not, one of the top guilds in the world (if not THE top guild), sums up their thoughts on Cataclysm's first tier of raiding.