Story
Of course, as many point out, the story has lots of loopholes, unexplained occurrences and the like, which makes the storytelling weak. I think there are some interesting ideas going into this. I particularly liked the fusion between Meiji, Shogun/Sengokujidai and industrial steampunk. While all of the elements/ideas aren't fused together perfectly, it's passable that I watched all the way until the end of the series (and I've been known to drop the "popular" Shounen Jump ones like Bleach and Naruto for repetition and reuse of the same formula for hundreds of episodes, even if their storytelling is good).
Like all "like-iterations" of the same core ideas, it's important to recognize カバネリ (Kabaneri) as something that had the potential to be great, but fell short, partly because of the above flaws, but also because it lives under the shadow of Attack on Titan. The rest of this review is focused with the idea onward that Kabaneri is not the same as Attack on Titan, and shouldn't be treated as such.
Art
I'm an artist, while there's some awkward inconsistencies here and there with anatomical limits (especially when it comes to orchestrating battle scenes), it's well drawn, especially in an age where anime is a modern commodity and less effort goes into them than it once was in the 90's. I typically stay for series that are well drawn, or at least make SOME semblance of anatomical accuracy (I'm sure we can all do without the ecchi, unrealistic rocket-flop boobs - thanks for not putting that in).
Sound
What can I say - sound direction is great. I watched most of with headphones on and I felt my heart skip in certain scenes with the カバネ (Kabane) howling in the distance. Don't even get me started on Hiroyuki Sawano, because we all know that man is a genius at evoking emotion through sound.
Character
Suffers the same issues as the story really, low development, unexplained personality inconsistencies and the like. It does touch however on some themes about human nature that I find particularly poignant. They illustrated well how humans in general writhe in fear, not many of us are heroes, or can be. We all too easily descend into fear and madness, collapsing our own societies at the drop of a hat. We're talking ideology and rhetoric here, of people driven by fear, loss, grief, and emotions that all too often make even the most rational of us into the same kind of beasts the Kabane are - albeit of the breathing, thinking kind. It's also important to talk about naivety and how easily some following the ideology they believe in, even if they don't understand its consequences. Given this, while individual characters are weak, the overarching themes are apparent. Besides, what kind of character development can you get from a 12 episode anime anyway? Bring back the 52-series!
TLDR:
Yes, we all know it's Attack on Titan (if it fell short) and we all know that lots of people rated it poorly for that reason. That itself isn't a sufficient reason to completely ignore it. The story is passable, art is good, sound is great. Not once while I was watching did I make cross comparisons to Attack on Titan, to anyone who watches this, please don't do this series injustice by following with the majority opinion. Come to your own conclusions after giving some time to think about what it highlights AFTER you finish the series.
