I remember bought a .hack game on my PS2 because there is character creation but the game was so bad I threw it out of my window. Game was empty, gameplay was empty, gamemap was empty, quests were empty, characters were empty. I was like "what's the deal of this series IDK" lol. It was the only and last .hack game I played. Even its graphics were so bad comparing to other games, IDK they intentionally made the graphics so bad to fit into "MMO experience" or something.
Honestly its real online experience may be valuable for playing with friends or the sense of NPCs are like "real people" playing the fictional MMO but it didn't click with me. Around the time there was another game called Kaido Racer 1 had the similar "social network" sense that you read messages of NPCs and all so this fictional social system felt better even on Kaido Racer 1 lol. And then IMO best game had the "fictional MMO you enjoy with NPCs like they are real people" sense was Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. Is this the best ".hack" game that's actually not a .hack game? lol