State of the beta suggests that they should at least take one more month
At least one more month. I've been in almost every alpha/beta since vanilla and I have never seen it in this bad of a state so close to release. There's some major showstopping bugs and tons of shit that's flat out broken or NYI.
For example I've been trying for about 3 weeks now to level a fresh character from 51-60 and have several characters stalled because one quest or another is bugged. They fixed a bug in Bastion last build that had everyone stalled, but broke two other zones main quest lines in doing so. Keep in mind that leveling is linear for your first character in SL and you have to do the campaign quests in order. Bastion->Maldraxxus->Ardenweald->Revendreth. If one of them is bugged you're flat out fucked, you can't level. You could grind mobs until they grey out but you can't go to the next zone until you finish the one you're in. Also the zones don't scale so if you level to say 57 and decide to go back and do some Bastion sidequests, they will all be grey and give almost no exp.
They're still tweaking exp values, they are set way too low right now. I finished Maldraxxus at level 54 last week and ended up stuck behind a door with a grey ! questgiver that requires level 56. People are reporting finishing Revendreth and getting Loremaster at level 58, unable to advance because the next quests require level 60. I imagine the exp values are quick and easy enough to tweak but this is one of the many examples of things wrong right now.
Covenants and soulbinds are a whole other mess that I'm not going to even get into.
As for The Maw, it's barren with not much to do right now but I'm sure they have plans for it later on. Hope you rolled a druid or shaman (you're not allowed to mount in The Maw).
On a good note, the expansion itself is beautiful. As usual the art and music guys knocked it out of the park. The zones look amazing and the quests/story are pretty decent by WoW standards. The leveling experience is fun and fluid (when it works) and I really hope they at least get that working before release.
The endgame stuff is going to be rough for a couple months, not even talking tuning or balancing, but abilities etc flat out working. It's going to be a scramble of hotfixes trying to stay ahead of the cutting edge players as they run into broken stuff.
I really wish they would delay but we all know that can't happen. The corporate wheels are in motion and there's no stopping that train. It's gonna be a rough ride boys.
