Should I download? Opinions please.

I think you got some ill information about the leveling. In fact, its extremely easy and fast to level anymore. If you spend money, that is. And even if not, you can hit 20 in maybe 5 hours? And then 20-30 is just a little slow. From 30 on, you have daily quests that give you a boatload of exp, so from that point to level 40 you can level from dailies alone about one level every three days or so. Add quests onto that and even more. And then, once you hit 40, another daily is added which combined with the level 30 one will level one about once a day for a while. Probably until about 50-55 maybe? I can't remember for certain. Then it slows down a little again, to maybe 3 days of just dailies to level, so on and so forth. Point being, no, leveling is not slow. Not until you hit about 80 or so. And its hellish at 100. b:surrender Its true the game can be quite boring if you don't get involved with other players. Making squads, joining factions and whatnot.

I'd say give it a try. My personal favorite for classes, and biased opinion on ease of gameplay would be a Venomancer. They are typically used as a magic class, though they can be melee, but while that's the case, they are very versatile. See, you get a pet that can be your tank and do damage, while you damage mobs yourself from behind their shield of fleshy petness. So even though you use strong magic to deal damage, you don't often get hit yourself and therefor don't have to worry too much about the low health. b:victory You can also solo many things that way and things move much faster than any other class that I've ever tried out. Its basically like playing with two characters at once, so you do double the damage and take half the time to do it.

Try an assassin.

I am a person which becomes bored of MMOs rather fast, but PW gives me quite a high motivation. If I pause playing for some time, it is one of the games which first come to my mind when thinking: "Have some time, what could I play today?"

But at least its a matter of taste. Just download and try it out. Its for free and does not cost you anything if you do not like it.
And since you already found the forums, you maybe also find some friends here helping you out with your first steps ingame

What class to choose - as others already said, a venomancer is a nice class for beginners. Even if it is more a mage class, it has a pet which is able to tank most of the normal monsters and thus venomancers do not go down too fast. Due to some skills restoring MP and HP, venomancers are able to level without pauses, too. Because of that they are also one of the best money-making classes.

Other classes for you may be Barbarian or Blademaster (but never tried them by myself, because I prefer mage classes).

Perfect World is... I think it's the best 3D MMORPG I've ever played. Besides WoW of course. But PWI is free. You don't have to pay money to have fun. I haven't even spent a cent on PW. The graphics are really nice and there are a lot of options you have to change the graphics if it gets a little too laggy. Also, the character customization is extremely detailed.

Leveling is quite fast for any class. But if you want the fastest class that levels, choose a Venomancer. It's also quite fun. You can use magic, but also melee, and have a moderate amount of HP. You won't really get hurt much because you get to tame and use pets in battle. They act as a personal tank that you can heal. Venomancers also can change into fox form and do melee damage. Their phys. def is raised in that form.

I personally love being a cleric, but as you said, you didn't like the low HP, and that's also what gets me the most. b:laugh

But yeah I have a lot of fun playing on my Veno.

Another good choice would be an assassin. They also have moderate HP and very high damage when you know how to play them. It's a little harder to level, but the difference is only barely noticeable. They are a really good class for PvP if you're going to join a PvP server (such as Lost City, etc)

Last choice is a BM, they are like... secondary tanks if you don't have a barb. Medium-high HP, depending on your stats. It's very versatile, since you can choose between dual swords, swords, duel hammers, etc. It's all melee.

You can look up the characters in the forums. They have much better descriptions and includes guides for builds and stats.