The first episodes are boring, repetitive and predictable. You could know what would happen the moment they started to fight.
And then the show just gets confusing, because the elements that are actually important to the story, like the Human Instrumentality Project, are barely mentioned, since they use the time they have to show Shinji running away or having "deep" thoughts and problems that aren't deep at all.
Of course, showing the characters' emotions when facing the reality in the show is important, but in this case we don't even know what's happening, because the questions raised are simply not answered.
The show also tries to make the simplistic characters look deep and well constructed, using the most complicated ways to say the most obvious thing: "escapism is bad for you". Asuka, for example, is a simple character who was rejected by her mother, leading to the strong desire to prove herself to others. But all the "subjective" and confusing scenes make it seem like she's absolutely complex and, as I said before, deep.
So in the end, the show is nothing more than something that tries to be deep, but ends up being just boring and confusing.
