The nice thing is that you really only need the expansions once you hit the appropriate levels. They've totally re-done all of the original content so it's as good (if not better) as the stuff in the expansions. You don't need to buy everything upfront. Furthermore, the game + expansions are expensive, true, but when you calculate entertainment-hour per dollar, it's actually pretty cheap. $12-$15 (depending on your subscription) buys you unlimited game time. Daiyon says he'll play 2-3 hours every other night, which comes out to almost 40 hours a month. Very rarely do games I purchase give me 40 hours playtime, or cost twelve bucks. Most games I buy are in the $30-$60 range, and would require me to play huge amounts of time before I break even with the WoW price.