Its through and through very similar to WoW but its much more pared down to the point where WoW has been trying to get to with its latest expansion. FFXIV is probably easier then WoW but that's also because SE / Yoshi P actually respect their players and try to make it so the game has visual information you can parse. WoW is straight up harder because you can't tell for shit what is happening on the screen quite a few times.
Also the world, races, story, subclasses, focus away from the auction house, and little inworld minigames are way more fun then the WoW ones which all start off with good concepts and pare down to "log in every day and try this to get the daily bonus did we mention staying subscribed and logging in every day".