Tobold, owner of one of the most famous blogs about World of Warcraft, had the chance to try The Burning Crusade thanks to one of his reader who gave him his beta key. Read his interesting first Burning Crusade experience .
"I did enjoy the fact that the new zones looked different than any other zone. But the gameplay was pretty much identical than leveling up any other level 1 character.

Fortunately meanwhile Blizzard had finished to copy my undead priest to the beta server. The first thing I did with him was heading towards the Outlands. The only way there seems to be the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands. I had previously seen other portal-like structures, for example in the middle of Duskwood, or in Feralas. But I checked the Duskwood portal out, and it still leads nowhere."