Stats, Levels and Skill Trees don't make this game an RPG.

So many games try to market themselves as an RPG, yet are ultimately underwhelming because they think that all there is to an RPG is stats, levels, and skill trees. This is not the case. Would you call Borderlands an RPG? Probably not. Luckily for Borderlands they weren't trying to be an RPG.

At the end of the day, there needs to be Role Playing in order for the game to be an RPG. Otherwise that defeats the entire point. This is typically done two ways. Either through a game where the player's actions directly influence the story (Dungeons and Dragons, early Fallout games, Mass Effect, Undertale) and/or through having an experience heavily focused on the experiences and development of a main character (Final Fantasy, The Witcher, most JPRGs in general).

Point is, the character you play as, be it one you created or someone else's, should be vital to the story. That the experience couldn't have happened to anyone else. That their actions mattered.

From my impressions of the Beta, I can already tell the Division is not going in the right direction in regards to being a solid RPG. It's certainly not character driven. He/she neither speaks and is mostly just an errand runner for the people who boss you around. At least early on. No way to tell if this will change, but I fear a solid case of the Kill-Loot-Return formula coming on.

However, this game can save itself in having the player choices matter. Anything can happen in a completely anarchic Manhattan and I hope the devs will take action on that. Going rogue is an example of this. I can't imagine that the Division will watch you go rogue and then decide after an arbitrary amount of time that you're okay and can be trusted again. Going rogue should have severe consequences, such as being exiled from the Division completely. Maybe even give you the opportunity to join one of the raider factions like The Cleaners.

Other opportunities could arise to. There are a lot of life or death situations that could emerge, and forcing the player to make these choices could have an impact on the narrative. For instance, do you decide to properly treat people who have been infected, or simply have them executed? Such choices could change how the public see the Division, as either the saviors of the city or no better than the raiders.

Without strong character development and/or meaningful choices an RPG quickly turns into a never ending grind of going to X, killing Y, and bringing back Z with the only things that change being the locations you do it in. I hope Ubisoft recognize this, and that the problem is mostly limited to the beta. If not, rebranding The Division as a cover based shooter with RPG elements would be the better idea, instead of an RPG with cover based shooter elements.

Edit: Way to downvote before you even had the time to read it, fan boys.