It’s the only MMO I’ve ever played through the full story of and maxed out more than one character in because it was just fun to play and explore. It’s one of the best the genre has to offer, and the community is a joy.

Highly suggest it. No need to rush into purchase. Try out the base game, explore, enjoy it. Endgame all classes can do basically everything, so finding one that clicks for you is more important than wanting to play “a healer” or etc. Unless you are trying to do the ultra sweaty Legendary Challenge Mode raid bosses you can complete everything using mostly whatever so meta isn’t a big deal. (Maybe high end fractal CMs and PvP/WvW things matter a bit idk.)

If you’re into story, there is a LOT behind the living season stuff, which was free if you played while it released but otherwise I think they bundle it all (and pretty sure like EVERYTHING is on sale, its $50 for the 1st 3 expacs and the living story stuff on their site, I think thats $5 cheaper than on steam.)

Do note: If you buy on steam, you’ve gotta buy all the stuff through steam. If you buy through arenanet’s website, you can’t purchase upgrade through steam. (If you’re on linux/steamdeck you can download and run it through steam with a startup command to use anet’s launcher to sign in normally if you go through anet instead of steam so either way it works.)