Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Different people like different things, so no. Some people enjoy the comraderie and progressive gains aspect of MMORPG's and thats perfectly fine for them, but the design of the medium makes it almost impossible to maintain certain things you'd get in a singleplayer RPG whilst preserving an equal and fun experiance for every player.
Self important excessivly long narcissistic answer, Part 1- The Insidiousness of the MMORPG:
MMORPG's are a combination of several pyschological tricks long recognized by Las Vegas Casino's and Pyschiatric Doctors which lead to an almost endless profit margin when utilized correctly. They are-
The Small Gains System: Human beings love to win- everyone loves a winner. Instinctivly the biggest most virile and dominant bastard in the room is considered to be the best and in our ancient history was the only one who got to breed, thus making the competition to be the 'winner' quite fierce indeed. The way an MMORPG and indeed almost all RPG's function is a small gains system wherein your actions- typically only those actions that pertain to murdering the local fauna en masse- generate 'experiance points' which when culminated to a certain point causes your character to gain a 'level'. This gained 'level' corresponds with an incremental increase in your characters basic attributes- their health, their ability to defend themselves and do damage, and the ability to use or opportunity to use new abilities of either a utility or offensive nature. These gained abilities are thus used to murder more fauna in order to climb to the next level- the ultimate of goal is of course to be the 'winner', however the way the game is constructed there never is a true "win" or "victory" because the whole point of the MMORPG is to keep you playing and creating a terminating storyline would terminate the gameplay of all their other consumers. Thus a string of faux rewards and stories are strung along for you to gobble up with slowly glowing prestige. This isn't necessarily a bad thing almost every game functions on this principle- after all one plays a game so they can do or become things they couldn't in real life and acting out violent fantasies of slaughtering hordes of goblins and riding a dragon into floating cities are high up there on the wishlist of all but the most determined 'cool people'. The issue with an MMORPG is theres no narrative growth or character development- your avatar in the end is nothing more then a mildly customised pile of numbers in a world that may be fleshed out in varying degree's but never to the extent it could be in a story tightly controlled for a single antagonist. This removes the immersion and intellectual appeal for many gamers and results in the feeling of a bland, artificial experiance which is only a system for taking your money. Mind you this is only one side of the equation- games have to be developed for the 'lowest common denominator', and by that I mean developers must design at least the majority of their area's with the gamer that (for some reason) isn't performing any extranious level grinding and is following their paperthin storyline dutifully. Because you don't NEED to level up to an excessive degree to play the majority of the games basic elements you would assume this system would be very ineffective at keeping people playing for hours at end but thats where the LOOT system comes into play.
The Loot System: Human beings respond to positive stimulus in a manner that creates a pyschological imprint that connotes the action you took with the positive reinforcement you recieve, in example "Eat Chocolate" = "Feel Good". Typically this is natures way of teaching us not to do incredibly stupid things by encouraging us to do GOOD things thus ensuring the survival of the species. But when you make the stimulus non conditionally dependent IE Chance based, you remove the ability to perform action X to recieve directly Y. However your brain still wants Y so you countinue to perform action X in hopes of getting Y. Much like a Casino slot machine you'll consistantly drop your money into the hole in the hopes of getting a big payout later on even though statistically you have very little chance of success. This same system is used in MMORPG's and Action RPG's such as Diablo for "Loot Drops", IE when you kill a monster it randomly drops money and an item whose type and quality depends on several unseen randomized factors possibly relating to your level, your class, the type of monster you just killed and what kind of shoes your wearing. All of this happens invisibly of course so you very typically have only the faintest idea of what's influencing your victory spoils. Now naturally anyone whose played games with this sort of reward system will immediatly note that most of the things you find are complete and utter crap, forcing you to perform Action X (in this example, slaughtering tons of creeps) over and over again in order to attain Reward Y- some shiny piece of loot or another that makes your character better putting you one step closer to being awesome. However there's always a better piece of loot to be found and they're increasingly rare, thus in order to garner the benefits and prestige of having this loot you must Grind both so you can manage the incredibly high level spawns sure to be carrying the best loot AND grind to repeat these spawns over and over again till they drop what you want. This is in the end just another representative of the inherent human desire to be the 'winner' and to prove all the time you've spent on the game meant something. You need loot to get levels and you need levels to get loot, providing a viscious circles that will keep you maiming orcs for weeks to come.
The Kicker: All of this wouldn't be so bad if not for the central facet of MMORPG's- they're intended to make money. Now certainly most games and indeed most things in this world are intended to make money, the producers create something and then provide it to the consumers in exchange for a profit. But with an MMO, you countinue to pay for the priveledge to use that product you already payed for. And because of the addictive qualities of these games due to the aformentioned pyschological hooks and conditioning, you WILL pay and you'll countinue to play over and over and over again because much like a gambling addict you've been conditioned to throw your money into the hole with the promise that something shiny awaits you at the end of your oddessy. But there never is an end, it just goes and goes, and you just pay and pay till the end of time. Thats why games like World of Warcraft give out free 1 week offers because they're confident the tried and tested pyschological hooks inherent in their game design will compel you to countinue after your free time is up and fork over tons and tons of cash. If you want to pay a ton of money to pay a game that offers little real intellectual stimulus then I wish you well, after all there's nothing inherently wrong with it- many people pay games simply so they don't have to think for a while. However, I and a few others appreciate a more intellectually stimulating experiance that provides a story structure and character development and above all something that doesn't both compel and force me to play in equal measure while sucking the money out of my pocket.
