It started out with an interesting premise: ten thousand people are locked into a virtual reality game, with no law or order. They must beat the game in order to get out. At the forefront is Kirito, a skilled player and one of the original players of the game. It sounds good on paper.
The issue with this is that Kirito is a borderline Gary Stu. He's the Ace, the secret weapon of the players, and all the player's hopes rides on his shoulders. Okay, apart from being a typical sounding shonen hero, that isn't anything special. What IS, however, is that he picks up a LOT of skills that become more and more often deus ex machinas. He steals the spotlight from every other character so everyone else, even our female protagonist, Asuna, can only stare in awe off to the side.
Asuna went from a powerful, pretty awesome character to the love interest that every anime requires. Her powers and skills as co-leader of the best guild in the game gradually dwindle until she's little more than a plot point. The romance between the two is nonexistent, despite it being praised as one of the anime's strongest points. If this is supposed to be the strongest point, I'm glad I didn't exactly go into this with high expectations. I'm not sure the author knew how romance works and that this was wish fulfillment. News flash guys, girls don't hang out with you, eat with you for a few episodes, and then decide they want to marry you. That doesn't happen.
The other characters, especially the female characters, all fall in love with Kirito. Why? I don't know; it isn't revealed. It's as if just being there is enough to charm everyone in sight. That was where I started dreading turning on my computer to watch this awful excuse for a romantic drama. They're shallow, one-dimensional, and bring little to no depth to the storyline whatsoever. They're only purpose is to long after Kirito, making it seem like a poorly written harem story.
The story is awful, despite having a strong premise. Go up a hundred floors (most of these aren't even shown), beat the boss, leave the game. Okaaay... what about leveling? Or getting better equipment? Interactions between guilds? Friendly duels? Anything NORMAL that you'd expect from an MMORPG? Nope, none of that is present, with the exception of illegal duels which eventually becomes murder cases (Kirito solves these, by the way).
The art is just... meh. It wasn't extraordinary and honestly looks like something I'd see out of a dime-a-dozen manga from 2006. No effects really seemed to catch my eye, and the scenery was just average. I expected more from a 2012 anime.
Sound? It does have a pretty nice opening, and the soundtrack is also nice, so if that's your thing, go for it. However, it's simply not enough to bring to the table. I had to force myself after episode fourteen to find episode fifteen and watch it.
SAO is over-hyped. It didn't live up to half the expectations I set, and I set pretty low standards. It's the perfect example of wish fulfillment to the highest degree.
