Think Guild Wars 2 will be a major AAA success?

Why do you feel GW1 was successful or not?

I personally never played it, but a few of my friends do.
Here are my conclusions about the game.
It's a free to play MMO, you pay for the game and nothing else.
Gold buying is pretty legit, and you can afford to do it because you're not p2p.
There's slightly better pvp balance, however no PvP is perfect. They give you pvp gear for your class. There is more Guild unity, along with alliances, which means you can pare up with other guilds.
Guilds halls!!
You can wear whatever gear you want, you apply the stats to it yourself. It's purely cosmetic and for prestige.
You don't need the expansions to enjoy the game, level cap is 20 and stays that way through all the expansions.

the only real con I see is the lack of end game content. once you hit level 20, you can run harder "instances" but there is no motivation other than to get prestigious titles and maybe some new looking gear.

If they add more endgame in GW2, they'll do very well.