General game impressions
Pro

The voice acting, from what I've heard so far, is excellent. I'm playing a female consular and her voice is probably the best I've heard in a game. The supporting cast is pretty great too. I didn't think voice acting would make such a big difference, but it adds a lot to the world. The story also makes a big difference. Blizzard's recent offerings have started adding continuous storylines to particular areas, but having an overarching plot to pull everything together is very nice. I think they're doing phasing better than Blizzard, too. Blizzard is nice in that your actions can effect major change to the world, but at the same time, when you're out of phase with 90% of other players it can be irritating. SWToR's lighter approach seems better to me.

Oh, one more thing I wanted to mention: the first flashpoint was awesome and if I can expect more of the same, flashpoints will easily be my favorite game feature. The Esseles flashpoint, while essentially being a series of hallways with fairly uninspired boss fights, nonetheless felt pretty epic with the cutscenes and storyline driving things forward. I was also able to solo (with my companion) the entire thing at level 11. I will be very, very pleased if it's common to be able to do flashpoints on one's own.

Con

I definitely found the game to be buggy, which is apparently a common complaint. In somewhere around 5-10 hours of play, I got stuck "in" the terrain three different times. Other than the bugs, my only other complaint is that the environments are nowhere near as polished as what Blizzard has (which is understandable).

Free-to-play impressions

So far I think they've done a pretty good job implementing FTP. A lot of the convenience features (sprint, mounts, etc) are pushed back, most of the customization options aren't available, crafting is limited, experience is slowed, etc. I can't even begin to list all of the differences, but (despite the constant complaints in general chat) I think most of the restrictions are fair. I can only think of two exceptions at the moment. First, you can't get additional bag slots without paying. Not for an additional cost, not at a later level, etc. Nothing but dollars will do. Forcing constant inventory management onto players seems like an exceptionally blatant "we're going to annoy the crap out of you if you don't pay us" kind of deal. The other thing is that some of the quest rewards are restricted for FTP, and they all seem to be (from what I can tell) credit boxes. When a quest gives you an extra box of credits as a reward, you (the FTP player) simply can't has, and I don't understand that. In the rest of the world, things cost more, sell for less, etc, which is understandable. Why not just do the same thing for credit boxes? It seems like an arbitrary restriction that doesn't fit.

Last thing I want to mention about free-to-play: it lowers the MMO-addiction-factor quite a bit, which is something I did not expect. When I'm not paying a monthly fee I have much less desire to power through content. That, coupled with the fact that I know I'm getting less XP anyway, means I'm happier to just play through at my own pace without worrying about power gaming. It's kind of a nice change.

Summary

The overall experience feels very much like a less polished, less complete World of Warcraft. At the same time, though, there are flashes of brilliance that add a lot more to the game than I had expected. The voice acting, storyline and dialog choices add a sense of continuity that makes collecting 18 butterfly tongues more enjoyable. Flashpoints are exciting and feel like playing through the last level of Mass Effect, or something similar.

Basically, this is not a game I'd be happy living in long term, but it's definitely one that brings something new to the table. I'm having a lot of fun moseying through as a FTP scrub.