I will have to disagree with OP. Guild Wars 2 is one of the easiest and most enjoyable games to play in the modern age as a new player, even if you're going in largely blind. My wife and I purchased GW2 on launch, and had played for a couple months here or there throughout its existence - but life and other things kept us from committing much time to it, until right around the time of EoD launch.
We came in on fresh characters, nothing of significance in our bank, no money accumulated, no knowledge of the gear system, confused by defiance bars, had to try out various professions for the first day or so, etc. Without a guild or anyone beyond the two of us to provide guidance, we cleared the main story - leveled our characters "naturally", had a great time, bought all the expansions/LW seasons and went through the game in the order the content was released - which was not difficult to determine. It was a great experience and it's still crazy to me that all of that content is still there, and that we were able to participate and help in metas and various other events with comparable gear and contribution to folks who'd been playing the game for 8 years straight. Even the crafting system in this game is so clean and clear compared to other MMOs. We got into WvW and were surprised to see that mounts existed (warclaws were not a thing that we recalled from the 1-2 matches we played around launch), had to figure that whole thing out, etc. But none of it was difficult, the wiki is an amazingly helpful resource, and super surprisingly we've been able to do such a huge amount of content without needing a party.
We were able to play through all of the game's story and open world, hop into PvP matches, rank up in WvW, try different builds, try different gear, learn about different sources of gear, unlock our mounts, pretty much anything we wanted without needing to ask for help beyond the random players who happened to be around.
There's a lot we haven't gotten into - legendaries, various achievements and collections, a lot of the guild stuff is a mystery to us, I'm still afraid to pull most of the levers in WvW, etc.
But considering the age of our characters and when we got into things, I don't think it can be said that GW2 is not accessible for new players.
I do know of various folks who were new to GW2 recently and seemed to have a hard time sticking with it - but they were all too eager to boost themselves to 80, dive headfirst into the "endgame" content, go grab some "meta" build a youtuber recommended, grind out a skyscale via fastest path available and never really just play the game. Had nothing to do with the game not being new-player friendly, had everything to do with new players just immediately...not wanting to be new players.
And that is a personal problem.