World of Warcraft vs. Guild Wars 2

As a long time player of WoW I've been very hesitant to explore any other MMO's. But reduced income and encouragement from my lovely girlfriend has led me to purchase Guild Wars 2. I'm only up to about lvl 5 of 80, so this is by no means fully comprehensive, but it's very telling as to the overall playstyle.

1. Character Creation
WoW: Well, I initially wanted to be a Troll Rogue, but my roommate was already playing as a Troll Rogue, so I went with a Troll Hunter. Mowhawk? check. Big Tusks? Check. Completely pointless name? Check.

GW2: Ok, I did a fair amount of research before I created my first character. I knew I wanted to be a Human Engineer. So I figured that would save me alot of time in character creation. No, not really. The amount of character options you have at creation is staggering. 40 different eye colors, 30 different hair colors, 18 different hair styles, eye width, eye height, size of pupil, size of upper lip, size of lower lip, the options are endless. I had to ask my girlfriend if there was an option to change this stuff later so I could rush through it. Apparently there is, but you have to pay real money for it (Like WoW's race change options). Eventually I decided all the details of what my character would look like, then came personality questions, are you aggressive? Social? reserved? Were you poor? Middle class? Wealthy?
Turns out all of the background questions help decide which Hero story you are going to be in. I chose the poor kid who is social and was adopted and never searched for his real parents. So far I am digging the story.

2. Introduction.
WoW: When I first started playing many years ago, I got very, very lost in the starting zone. I died somewhere, couldn't find my body and ended up wandering around as a ghost for an hour, getting lost in higher level zones. I eventually had to take the spirit healer, which broke my gear, so I had to find someone to repair my gear, which took all of my money. Plus I had Rez sickness for awhile to deal with too.
Back then WoW was a much different creature, very few addons existed, the game was nowhere near as user friendly as it is now.

GW2: Ok, arrows pointing where to go, pop up hints everywhere, re-occuring pop-up hints in case you don't seem to be getting it. Very user friendly right off the bat. You follow the green arrows to the green star, talk to the dudes with the green star over their heads to progress in the quests.

3. Questing
WoW: The starting quests have changed some since I first started, but they are still pretty painful for the older races. The newer races have brand-new starting zones with more interesting quests, but the originals still kinda suck. "Go kill twenty boars. Then come back and see me. Then go collect 8 fruits off the cactus. Then come back to see me. Etc."
Really boring grind, you would almost be more efficient just killing boars all day and not bothering with the quests.

GW2: Ok, so first my dude leaves the city to rescue farmers from a centaur raid. Pretty awesome. Then he helps the farmers deal with all of their various problems, usually by clicking on things or killing trash. Same basic concept as the WoW version, but more story built into it. Then I go back to the city to visit my childhood friend who apparently has gotten involved in a gang, so I have to rescue him from the gang.. twice. then go undercover to find out what the gang is up to and report it to the head guard in the city, who happens to think I'm awesome due to all the centaur killing earlier.

4. Interface
WoW: back then, really confusing, you had to read the guide that came with the game just to learn how to perform basic actions NPC's were totally useless, the map was totally useless (the map in WoW is much better now, it totally helps you with your questing, but before it literally just told you where you were.).

GW2: no guide needed, but much of the controls are the same as WoW so I came in with that advantage. The map is extremely useful, and can be used to teleport yourself to any waypoint you have already been to, from wherever. Most NPC's are useless and just say "whats up?" to you, but the quest NPC's and information NPC's are very useful.

5. Combat
WoW: Stand in one place and mash your attack buttons as often as possible.

GW2: "Stand in one place? Are you crazy? That fucker is trying to hit you! Dodge Motherfucker! Don't bother hitting the attack button! That shit is automatic, Just hit your special attacks when they come off cooldown and Jump Gypsy!"

Cost (over time)
WoW: Vanilla (bought new) $40, Burning Crusade $40, WotLK $40, Cataclysm $40, Mists of Pandaria $40.
Subscription for 5 years $900.
Total cost for 5 years of play $1,100

GW2: Full game purchased at $20 discount for a grand total of $40. No subscription fees.

Now to be fair, there is a little bit of apples to oranges here. WoW is a game focused on Max level content, especially raiding. GW2 is a game focused on leveling and questing. You follow the plot of your character, rather than the meta plot in WoW. There is no organized instance runs like in WoW, there are just random world events. People go in and out of the same questing area as you and you share difficulty with them. Kinda like in Diablo 2 when adding another player to the room increased the strength of the monsters. The game really is much more like Diablo than it is like WoW. It's Diablo as a MMO. With way more customization options and a much better interface. As someone who was addicted to Diablo 2 in the worst way, this game is actually much more up my alley than WoW.
WoW is a game of waiting. waiting for an instance, waiting for a battleground, waiting for a flight path, waiting for a raid.
In GW2 everything is ready for you now. You want to work on your story arc? Ok, do it now, it's ready for you. No need to sit around in a city and wait for the instance to pop. That's gotta be the most frustrating thing about WoW as a subscription-based game. You pay monthly for your game time, but you spend most of your game time waiting for the game to be ready for you to play.

Final review of starting WoW vs. Starting GW2
Go with GW2. Cheaper, and much more instant gratification. I will miss instances in WoW, but I will not miss 45 minute wait queues.