personally i think aion sucks,lineage for example has a story you got some goals you know what you do:) in aion the enviroment is very strange and you are kinda lost,in l2 you xp u return to town go for pvp all is organised:).In aion xp and quests for a lot of time and then there's isn't something important:D..though i believe it is very good cause if u get i higher lvl i suppose it might be more interesting.That's my point of view but from private servers..if i had the time i would start retail because privates suck 65%+ of quests don't work and many npcs are missing.The thing that impressed me most at it are the combos at skills i didn't expect that from an mmo.

Well, AION has a small story, but it also has a good point. Its that u make ur own story. U learn the story of AION (and new things always come up) while u lvl up and do quests, while on L2 u learn shit. For example on AION there are quests where they give u a book and u have to read the book to know what to do. While u read u learn the story of AION which is a different thing and different is always good xD