I played the game a bit before they brought it down for the relaunch. The changes that were made to the game over its previous launch version had been fairly significant. Combat wasn't total garbage, leveling wasn't entirely a chore (well grouping wasn't too bad if you went to the fun spots) and a few particular encounters could even be called fun. That said, I do think the relaunch has a bunch of potential, although I am not in the alpha since I have more important stuff going on - if the 'new' team pushed the game in the right direction this could very well be playable and possibly even fun... maybe. I say all this only based off what I saw before I stopped playing the last version before the game was brought down. I haven't really cared at all about the videos and trailers posted in this thread and the old thread, because frankly, I don't care about fluff - especially not from Squareenix. But I do think the team behind it is capable of doing good things, so we will see.
Theres likely going to be a nice big flaw when it launches, which we probably can't avoid - SE is stubborn, so after it relaunches, it will have a sub fee tacked on to it- if not immediately then shortly thereafter. Obviously they have a lot going against them and their relaunch, and at best it's going to be a struggle for them. I think I may give it a shot if its free after the relaunch (or when its open beta) but I think that either way it turns out - it will be a struggling game with any sort of subscription to deal with, especially these days.
Unless its the second coming of Everquest I won't pay another penny for this game.
/shrug