I would like to add a disclaimer, which is that I have read (most of) the Light Novels for SAO and that may influence my decision. I will try to keep that out of it as much as possible though.
As well as this, my review MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS. I'll try to keep them to a minimum, but there's only so much I can do.
Anyways, on to the review.
8/10 Story - This might be a bit surprising to some people based on other reviews they've seen, but the story in SAO is actually really good.
Part 1 - Without spoiling too much, the premise of it is that a gamer (Kirito) gets trapped in an MMORPG by use of Full Dive technology to redirect brain waves, etc. While this may feel unoriginal (and I could talk more about that but I'm trying to keep the LNs out of it), originality doesn't really matter. What matters is if the premise is good, and yes, the premise is good.
Then there's the rest of the story. Adventures through Aincrad were fun to watch, and the romance was fine. Overall the first half would deserve a 10.
Part 2 - This is where it gets a bit more iffy. Once again, the premise of this is fine (not as good as for part 1, but fine), which, and there may be some spoilers here, is where Kirito tries to save his girlfriend and pseudo-wife (Asuna) from an evil "mastermind" (let's save this for the characters section) is trying to... well that's a decently large spoiler so I'll stop right there. Sure, it's a damsel in distress kind of arc, but Asuna at least contributes a little bit. However this part does drop the story score quite a bit due to fanservice, a poor overall story, weird romance stuff (once again, characters... I know), and just being an overall worse half.
10/10 Art - Nothing much to say about this. The art is great and SAO uses my favorite art style for anime soo...
10/10 Sound - The sound isn't really lacking during the series in any obvious way, and the OP/EP music is the overall best I've ever heard from a series.
7/10 Character - The characters are really not as bad as many people say they are, but there's still not great. They are, hence the 7, good. I won't go into a huge amount of detail here as if I do, I know I'll spoil a lot of stuff. Basically the main complaints are:
Villains with bad or non-existent motives (true, but if you're a gamer or creator, you might be able to relate a little kinda ish bit to the first villain. The second villain... can't support him as much).
Main characters with no backstory (not true, but some of the backstory that should be there is missing).
Harems forming around the main character (let's be honest. This is a romance (right?), and so it's a high chance that it's going to have some kinds of harem elements).
I hope I've been successful in clearing some of that up. Anyways, I'd consider this the be a 7 in terms of character. Sorry for being so non-specific, but I know how annoying spoilers can be.
10/10 Enjoyment - I really liked this show. A lot. That's pretty much all there is to say about this.
10/10 Overall - The enjoyment factor is probably weighted as a 12 or 13 for this one (and rounding up), but I think that overall, this show is "outstanding", and that if you haven't watched Sword Art Online, you should certainly consider watching it.
