I wouldn't call A realm reborn bad. It's just not really as good as HW. The free trial goes past the third expansion too so it would only be time. If you are not interested by the end of Heavensward, then it probably isn't for you. Though idk, I feel like most people could get an idea if they were interested or not pretty fast.

I can speak that the main quest doesnt do any super weird anime bullshit that normally turns me off. Its honestly pretty tame in that regard. But it's def high fantasy.

Honestly I feel the weaker point is that it's a MMO and the mog station (what you use to create an account and shit) is a god damn nightmare.

But as far as story, I think it's the best Final Fantasy story right now. But you do have to like Final Fantasy.

The Youtuber JoeCat has some good videos if its something someone is interested in but they are concern about the commitment. He even has one specifically for how to start and when to start.

Sorry if this is long. It's kind of a lengthy thing to talk about if you want to be fair but honest imo. I absolutely love FF14 but I would never want to mislead someone on it. Cause like anything it's far from perfect and I'd never want to make somone waste money on something. I mean everything else I talked about you can pirate.