The first romance anime I ever watched was "Kimi ga Nozomu Eien" (Rumbling Hearts); and since then no other romance has just quite satisfied me. Whether the characters were too shallow, the plot was too cliche, or any other wide variety of faults, I was always disappointed- until now.
For me, being able to relate to the characters is one of the most important parts of a manga/anime. If I can't relate, I won't even try to finish the manga/anime. Some where down the road, someone decided that making the main character a helpless, worthless sack of shit was a good idea, and for some reason almost all the other authors jumped on the bandwagon. GE: Good Ending starts off with a male character that fits into the former category, but fortunately he turns into a normal human being who can actually wipe his own ass.
What pisses me off the most is when the supporting characters seem to fall on their knees and grovel for this aforementioned worthless character. Thankfully all the romance in this was at least somewhat believable. We got some good character development, peering into their pasts, which showed us why each character did what they did, which leads me to the next point.
For me, unless the manga is super short, romance without drama is very boring. The problem with drama in romance is the fact that usually the author will blow everything out of scale. The author wants to keep the drama relatable, so he/she makes the drama a small problem- something like a bad breakup. However to keep the story moving, that one breakup ruins several peoples lives, making the story seem almost silly. GE has quite a bit of drama, at some points their was maybe even too much drama for my taste, but all the effects of the drama were believable. One character has a sex tape spread throughout the school without her consent, and after that she has a hard time wanting to love; which I feel is very believable.
As far as art goes, I felt it fit the story line perfectly. It wasn't too dark, but it wasn't too.... fluffy(?) either. I don't think anyone will have any complaints with the art. I found myself enjoying the story line almost every second I was reading. In fact, I read this manga for 6 or so hours straight, and finished it one sitting. The story was just long enough to give us a really deep emotional attachment to all the characters, but it wasn't to long as to let the drama get redundant.
The only reason I gave GE: Good Ending a 9, and not a 10, is because the main character started out as the kind of character I truly despise the most; a worthless sack of shit. If you get turned off by this fact, however, do not fear. After about 10 or 15 chapters his act turns around and he turns into one of the best romance protagonists I've seen. GE: Good Ending isn't quite on the level of Rumbling Hearts (in my opinion), but it sure comes close. If you want some romance with a bit of drama; you won't be disappointed.