In my opinion, the story was fantastic. I was new, tense, interesting, and deep. The world was really well developed, and created the perfect example of a gamer's dream or nightmare. Of course, being a big gamer myself, I really loved the concept of being trapped in a game, so there may be a little bit of personal bias on that bit.
The art was solid. I wouldn't say anything about it was particularly impressive, but it was definitely good art. However, I will say that the animation itself was very fluid an pleasing, so there is that.
The music and other sounds were just like the art, not much else to say. Very fitting and solid, but nothing spectacular.
The characters were really great. Kirito was an interesting, bad ass, and entertaining lead, so he was very well balanced as a character. Other lead characters, such as Asuna, were also very interesting to me, and none of them ever felt annoying or ruined episodes.
Finally, The anime was very enjoyable. There was enough action to keep me interested through the whole thing, and even though there is that sudden switch to romance, that was all well written and enjoyable. I really had fun watching this one.
S overall the anime isn't really anything special, in my opinion, but it is absolutely worth your time, if you somehow still haven't seen it. I gave the show an eight because it was, in fact, really good. Just because is wasn't the greatest show ever doesn't mean it wasn't excellent.
