I worked in MS for 10 years and still work here and I think it can be a great place to work, with one caveat - it depends on the group. Microsoft is not a monolith and different groups have different managers, different cultures (values and expertise among peers), different customers, different business and are in different stages (e.g. mature product, young product, life support etc). Most discussions about life at Microsoft are bound to be characteristic of small number of groups and not necesarily representative.

The benefits are mostly the same across the board, and you can get those at glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Microsoft-Salaries-E1651.h...