I played AoC since it came out, have a lvl 80 Herald of Xotli and loads of alts, I only played around 2 months then I gave up.
It's a great game, but so much not done yet, I don't know about the new patches, but it might be great now.
I did try WoW a few months too, got a lot of alts there too, lvl 63 Priest, but WoW is boring -.-
Best game that hooked me for years was Anarchy Online, which I still play from time to time.
Anyways, now I tried Warhammer Online, and I'm lovin it! Well, it looks like WoW with the graphics and all. But Warhammer Online did everything right that WoW did wrong.
AoC has such beautiful graphics on max settings, I loved to explore and find good views. And the action in the gameplay in AoC is amazing! Those fatalities are the best

AoC will probably become better after all patches comes, which might already have come since I haven't played for a while now. So I'd definetly give it a try.