Very good pve, medium pvp, medium / weak crafting, good  rp possibilities, very good atmosphere, very nice community.

Hope that sums it up...you can buy the box and are good to go. Optional you can buy dlc's, or clothes/pets/xp boosts in the shop.

You can do missions in any order, most of them are repeatable and sometimes very much thinking and investigation is involved. PVP are warezones (3 Factions), but some kind of open pvp is in the works. You are able to tank, dmg or heal with 1 char, there is very much flexibility. I would call it a sandy Themepark puzzle MMO :)

This is, in no way, shape or form, a sandbox game, remember that.  Its primarily themepark, with the main selling points being character flexability, story, setting, atmosphere, and investigation mission (puzzle quests).  PvP is instanced, but pve is where the real meat of the game is.

PvE is very SWTORish in terms of presentation, you get a cutscene for the quest (done better in both writing and voiceacting than with TOR IMO) then you go do it.

Dont get me wrong, I love the game, but it really doesnt sound like what you're looking for.

Its not sandbox cause its very linear. In my opinion this game combines few game types: adventure horror mmorpg puzzle. The quests and strory are the most important. If you do not like story and cinematics before every normal quest it may be not for you.

This game is hard and challenging in few aspects. Most of the puzzle quests are not possible to solve by yourself. You have to use solution, walkthrough outside of the game.

Skill system also can be challenging because there are no classes and you can spend points on any skills among hundreds of them. If you spend points in wrong skills, you may have problems later in combat. Skills are also not standard, and not easy to understand. Often damage is not important but proper combination of skills active and passive and combination of states like afflicted, impaired, hindered, weakened etc.

Its a horror game and almost all quests are negative: someone died, commit suicide, killed someone, invoking ghosts, interested in paranormal etc.

I play this game only for interesting story quests, cinematics, atmosphere, sound, music.

The engine of the game is badly optimized and laggy. I can run and play smoothly BF3, Planetside 2, GW2, LOTRO, but this game often lagging and FPS drop below 20. Long loading time when changing zones.

Its just one time payment so its worth the rich content of the game.

Originally posted by Derros

Dont get me wrong, I love the game, but it really doesnt sound like what you're looking for.

+1, and I also love the game since launch. As others stated, if you love sandbox and pvp, maybe this is not the droid you're looking for :)

TSW isn't a sandbox (sandbox-y at most, in the way you can develop your character in any direction), and as most players agree on, pvp is maybe the weakest point of it. I can't say it for sure since I don't pvp, but that's what I heard :)

You like video games?

Hey if you got the cash try this video game.

Or pick up something on Steam.

Honestly if you're fishing for someone to tell you it's like a sandbox.. It's not. Progression in leveling up you got a few options, progression on where you level up or how, no real options. It's growing and for a flat fee that's kind of novel.

Let one of these threads convince you

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=54077

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=62283

btw there are no hidden costs whatsover, it´s B2P. You can get cosmetic stuff from the cash shop, and some XP boosts, but that´s it.

Future content additions will be optional downloads or you get them with the optional membership points

No P2W or nasty gambling grab boxes, no "exchange gems for gold ripoffs".

It´s a very good MMO with an honest business model, even got the liftetime membership package and lovin´ it. (Playing since August here)

I also loved SWG, and SWTOR did not live up to my expectations, but TSW fully did. It´s not a sandbox per-se but the free character development and material based crafting feels pretty sandboxy to me. I´d almost say it´s a theme park MMO with some nice sandboxy features.

Also the zones are huge and varied, and there are day/night changes.

Next big zone to come is Tokio

Also it has been hinted in a dev stream there are open world PvP objectives, like events in development. Right now PvP is instanced warzones

Funcom has always and will continue to put out problem free Games.

It's not a sandbox, but has some of the best PvE around.  Here's a good write up, and would be what I would say to anyone interested in the game:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/why-i-play-the-secret-world/

PvP is a work in progress -- there are people who play and have fun with it, but be prepared to work for it.

Originally posted by Walic
Pretty much what the subject is.......I want everyone that plays or tried the game to convince me to play it.  To help you out some my favorite game of all time is SWG pre-CU.  I love sandbox games, being able to do whatever I want when I want and haven't no direction.  I like to PVP more controled if possible dont like being ganked nonstop.  From what I got from the reading is that it is now a B2P the same model as GW2, but I keep hereing about fees and stuff so what is the sub like?  Other then that just start plugging your game tell me about it.............Convince me.........

Based on the little info provided:

PVP in TSW sucks, it's terrible.

TSW is not a sandbox.

So, based on that, don't bother.

Originally posted by Alchimes

This game is hard and challenging in few aspects. Most of the puzzle quests are not possible to solve by yourself. You have to use solution, walkthrough outside of the game.

Well no... the investigation missions can be REALLY tricky; you have to pay close attention to the mission-giver and clues, and make plenty of use of the Internet (the game has a built-in browser for a reason). I'm most of the way through "Hell and Bach", looked at an online walkthrough of my current progress and wanted to kick myself. After brute-forcing the 2nd and 3rd translations with guesswork and an online Latin phrase site, I learned that the phrases are in the instances as graffiti!

In-game London has some nice amenities: bank-mail-sales sites, a clothing store, a bar with dance floor, and a theater you can rent for productions (some props are loot drops and you can buy others).

It doesnt cost you much to try it out. More like a couple beers. And id recommend getting a couple of beer in the house together with the game because you are gonna love it, enjoy it and forget about the time. So better get the things you need to enjoy the weekend before you start playing! :-)

So why not I ask. I am sure you will realize you should have tried it out months ago!

I just don't understand threads like this.

There is a vast plethora of information about the game. Everything from player reviews to screenshot galleries to 'how to' youtube videos to entire web sites dedicated soley to The Secret World.

What are we, some players, going to be able to show you that you don't already have access to?

If it's a matter of you not wanting to do the research for yourself, well, sorry but I'm not going to do it for you. 

It's a good game. It has some really great things about it and some things that aren't so great. It's relatively cheap to try. I play it and have fun. What more can I say?