I've played both WoW and EQ2.
I can say without a doubt that WoW is fun, polished, and looks nice. It does have its problems though. WoW encourages soloing and discourages grouping. It's always faster to gain experience when you're solo. Collection quests (which make up a pretty significant percentage of the total quests) are far more tedious when you're grouped too. Also, combat is so fast and things die so quickly that there literally aren't enough things to kill when you're in a group.
It's a shame, really, that my friends and I really never got to hunt together as much as we'd have liked to. We formed a guild just so that we could all chat together while we soloed. Outside of instanced dungeons, there's really no reason at all to group. I felt like I was playing a single player MMORPG. When joining a pickup group, people rarely knew how to play their role. Healers would nuke instead of heal, mages would overnuke and draw aggro, and tanks would just deal damage instead of taunting. As bad as the original EQ turned out to be, the one good thing about it is that the game kicked your ass and made you learn your role the hard way. If you didn't learn, you would never get anywhere and you'd just end up dying all the time.
WoW truly is a casual MMORPG. There's no penalty for death, and you can effectively solo your way all the way to level 60. This could be a good or bad thing depending on what you're looking for in a game. If you enjoy doing things at your own pace without being dependent on other people, WoW is your game. If you enjoy teamwork (almost to the exclusion of being able to do anything solo) and enjoy a hard game that repeatedly hands your ass to you, then EQ2 may be for you.
Does EQ2 have its problems? Yes. Oh yes. The class differentiation is a joke (though arguably the lack of PvP makes this less of a factor), the game lags horribly in some outdoor zones, and it has a much more tedious leveling treadmill than WoW does. EQ2 is not a casual MMORPG. You will have to put in a lot of hours and you may not necessarily feel like you've accomplished anything after only having played for 30 minutes.
The game does indeed look nice, but the art may not be for you. Some people like the exaggerated cartoon look that WoW has, and some people like the attempted realism look that EQ2 has. It's a toss-up depending on what you're into.
If you're masochistic enough, playing EQ2 can be more rewarding than playing WoW simply because it's a harder game that requires more of a time commitment in order to achieve things. Unless you can work in a group and play well with others, you're going to have crappy gear and face a long road to level 50.
WoW is casual and doesn't require much of a time commitment. EQ2 is much harder and requires much more time. One is carebear, the other one is masochistic. Pick your poison. I tend to want more of a challenge than WoW offered, so I'll be going with EQ2 for that sole reason. Don't take this as my recommendation, though, because either game could be for you depending on what you're looking for.