Guild Wars 2

So I play an ele and mostly mesmer at the moment but I am looking into a more melee oriented class.
My questions are,
How popular are guardians? I do not care much about playing over populated classes.
Do any of there melee styles feel fast or are they all slower paced?
I noticed they have lots of cool magic would you say they play closer to a battle mage then a paladin?
What race has the coolest animations for guardian? No asura please weapons are to small.
Im pretty sure I do not need to ask how they do in groups:)

Thanks all!

Guardians are popular now. Having at least one in a dungeon or Fractal can make your life a lot easier.

If you want fast paced you will want to avoid Hammer.

Greatsword and sword have fast animations, but Sword fell out of our meta. Mace and Scepter along with Focus and Torch are our main weapons along with the Greatsword. I would consider all of them to be fast to moderate.

As far as battlemage vs Paladin it depends on how you look at it. I run Meditations in PvP. It makes for a very highly reactive battle mage style. In PvE I use the defensive magic more because skills like Retreat/Wall of Reflection/Purging Flames are of more use to my group then meditations, which only really benefit me. While in WvW I run meditations or shouts depending on if I am doing large or small group content.

I perfer my Human guard to my Norn guard, but that is just me.