Yea i dont know what mmo CO is like, but i have yet to see one where you dont grind. Do you get everything for free there?
Yes there is lotsa grinding if you skip all the sidequests and expect to level purely on the main story. Right now at lvl 17 and a half i need to do a couple of repeatable quest as i ran out of soloable quests to do and am waiting for the Legion to do some groupquests later today. These repeatable quests reward you with coins that can be handed in for some armor and weapons so it doesnt feel like a complete waste.
I should get new quests in a level or two as i know of a few npcs i saw had quests i couldnt take yet, and i can soon start on a new zone.
Apparently there was some levels at early 20's where grinding mobs was the only option, but that was before the 1.5 patch they applied just before this launch. I am guessing most of those grindfest claims are from people that played on chinese version thats been out for a year or from early closed beta just before the patch was added.
I think more mmos should launch in china a year in advance to remove bugs and see where theres missing content.
Only problem is the class balance can be a bitch as they all seem to prefer assassins. I saw some weird class poll where there were tons of assassins and certain classes was hardly played.