I loved 8.0 and 8.1, I think PvE wise the game was great. The aesthetics and music were great and the whole story linked together nicely. 8.1 is my favourite raid in all WoW, the only thing I didn’t like is that they killed Rastakhan - yes he was my favourite horde character and Jaina is my least liked alliance character, but also I think it kind of spoils the lore related to Zul’s betrayal and the whole Rezan - Bwonsambdi loa hierarchy thing. He put up a good fight though, and apart from this alliance bias in 8.1 I loved Dazar’Alor and the music. Uldir was great too.
Fast forward to 8.2, an underwater zone that’s not even underwater. We get there and Azshara pops up out of nowhere with no precedent, saying something like ‘hahaha I could kill you all instantly by drowning you but I won’t because plot reasons’, the story is corny, predictable and linear. The music is bad, the art is boring, the raid is boring. At least Mechagon is good.
8.3 does not look good either, instead of doing something original with the old gods we are just getting more generic purple, boring invasions which we already had in legion. Purple, purple and more purple with an extremely linear story. Bosses that are just resurrected from old raids or completely made up. Remember Mythrax in 8.0, how the whole Vol’Dun plotline leads to him being resurrected because you’re too late to stop Jakra’Zet suiciding and summoning him? It’s also a bit of a plot twist. That’s good storytelling there, unlike this linear rubbish we are getting rn.
I won’t comment on PvP because it has been trash during the whole of BfA and I just accepted it a couple of months in and focused on PvE.
Looking back it seems this has happened before. I only played Cata during Grim Batol and part of Blackwing Lair (or whatever, the one with Nefarian). I enjoyed both these raids, I loved the Cata dungeons and I liked Cata in general, especially the zones. However apparently the expansion was pretty bad at the end, now when soloing I find Firelands and Dragon Soul very boring so I can see why that might be. Same with WoD, the zones are great and I love the Highmaul aesthetic but the Iron Horde stuff is bland.
In Legion 7.0 was pretty good, 7.1 was my favourite - Nightborne stuff - then we got this generic linear green Broken Shore crap, green Argus, both pretty dull. Maybe I’ll come back for the first half of Shadowlands.