I'm not much into the lore. I watched the movies, played some of the past games, but never read one of the books.
I think what I'm excited for is a heavily story-driven MMO that focuses on making the gameplay fun and allowing people of varying playstyles to still come together now and then for events like raids and such, without requiring a heavy hours-per-week commitment.
I've been playing MMOs since Everquest launched in '99. I've done it all. I've played casually, I've been hardcore. I led my own mid-tier guild, I've been raid leader for a guild that was #3 in progression on Everquest. I've slung heals, I've tanked, I've pulled, I've buffed.
I think my biggest hope is that the game encourages social behaviour without forcing it down our throats in the day-to-day questing. And that the end game remains fun without insane repetition. I don't mind repeating raids to farm stuff, but I don't want to be redoing the same 2-3 instances every day or week or whatever until the next content patch *cough*DCUO*cough*