I'm about to hit level 20, and think it's safe for me to give the game some feedback:
What I like
Combat is fast-paced and engaging
Reasonable combat skill customization
Pretty wide variety of races
Bag space isn't an issue (yet)
You get a semi-permanent companion
Decent quests so far, and while there are "Kill X"-quests they are completed in no time.
Free
Some fun Foundry quests
What I don't like
It's painfully obvious that they've more or less lifted game mechanics and components from Champion's Online and Star Trek: Online, and put them into Neverwinter with a new coat of paint. Companions work almost identically to crew members/officers in STO, same with the crafting system. That's fine and all for crafting and companions, as these do not define DnD, but where it becomes straight-up awful is when they use their own game mechanics in lieu of DnD-mechanics - such as the attributes/feats/skills/etc.
It's just the same attributes found in STO and CO, down to how they work as % increases per point spent, but called Con/Int/Str/Wis/Dex/Cha.
That's another gripe that I have with the game - that if it weren't for them namedropping DnD stuff and the name (Neverwinter) - it wouldn't come across as a game taking place in the Forgotten Realms or being an adaption of the tabletop game (Even the 4th ed. one).
Where they've been unable to utilize their previous game's mechanics for various DnD concepts, they've simply skipped out on them (Alignment, Skills, Feats, Customizability).
It's just so awfully generic and drab, and if it weren't for the relatively neat combat, it'd feel right in with the crop of fantasy-wow clones that starting appearing following the success of that giant. I'm running everything on max, and the game looks pretty awful - especially compared to the MMOs we've been getting over the last couple of years. Maybe it's something they can fix, or maybe it's just a problem inherent in using a game engine that's too old to cope with modern games. Yes, you got a ton of character customization in the game, in that you can give your character super long nails, or lanky build, but in the end you need to make your character look like a weird mutant in order for it to not look generic.
Okay, maybe I'm being harsh on it, probably because I've expected something different from what it is. What I expected, when I heard of the name Neverwinter and Dungeons&Dragons, was an RPG MMO - but what I got, was more of an arcadey action MMO. I expect to be immersed in an RPG, to feel like part of the world rather than as a player playing the game - to forget that I'm even playing a game. What you get with Neverwinter on the otherhand is a problem endemic to a lot of F2P - it practically shouts at you that you're playing a game. Constant announcements of player so and so winning a nightmare horse, NPCs telling you about buying Zen coins and converting them to diamonds, messages all over the place notifying you of special rewards you can get if you play a player-created mission or a skirmish within the next 37 minuets!
Now, if my expectations were different, not necessarily lower, I might be enjoying the game more, for what it is. It is an arcade action MMO, where you at times need to push in another dollar to really enjoy the game. Then it's no longer a problem that customization is nearly non-existent, as they are far more customizable than other arcade games adapted from the DnD setting. Honestly, I think using the name Neverwinter was a wrong move, as the point of it is to attract gamers who have previously played Neverwinter Nights - which is a wrong move as they quickly discover that Neverwinter has almost nothing of what made Neverwinter Nights enjoyable.
TL;DR: Yeah, it's not quite the MMO I was waiting for, or expecting.
