I think I heard about how bad it was from a few people, until I gave it a shot myself. Honestly....I like it, I don't have a problem with the romance, I ship Kirito and Asuna anyway, and there wasn't per se a ton of romance outside of hand holding, "I love you", or "let's always be together forever" in Season 2 anyway. I don't even notice much of the harem it's supposed to have. I imagine a harem is the protagonist having a bunch of girls all over him, yet Kirito is singlemindly in love with Asuna while the others don't per se do much to get in the way. Liz and Sugu stepped aside when they saw Asuna in the picture, Silica doesn't do much, and I'm not really sure with Sinon and if she's a member of the harem. Kirito you need some more guy friends.
Although I will say it could be a lot better than what it is. Aincrad could've been longer than 14 episodes, I can't tell you how many times during my first viewing where I thought: "Where is this coming from when something else was happening last episode, the battle began at the end of the last episode, and now it's over at the beginning?". It felt like the Aincrad Arc. at times was inconsistent and moving at the speed of light and I thought that was the best portion of the anime so far. If Aincrad was 30-40 (Maybe 50 or so) episodes than it could've been A LOT better. Meanwhile I don't think the other stuff was bad. I don't mind ALO, on contrary to other people. I like Leafa, not too big on incest though, but I like her and thought she was cool, Yui is as adorable as ever, Suguo was a jerkoff that I wanted to see get his karma. GGO I REALLY enjoyed, Sinon is probably my favorite female lead, I thought Death Gun was cool. The Excalibur Arc. I felt was unneeded with how short it was, and the Mother's Rosario Arc. I thought was okay. I REALLY enjoyed the Ordinal Scale movie though.
I like SAO and look forward to S3, but it could be A LOT better than what it is.
