Let's start with the stuff I liked. I thought the art and animation was really good. The character designs were excellent and the out-of-online areas were beautiful. The music was really enjoyable.
I thought was story was pretty mediocre. I understand that there are Beauty and the Beast parallels, but I didn't really think some of the were entirely necessary. I thought they didn't need to have the Beasts HQ to be a hidden castle filled with tiny servants. This movie sacrificed characterization in favor of telling the story. There were too many characters, and nearly no one had sufficient characterization or development between their relationships. The online world isn't really all that visually appealing.
I think the emotional drama of the movie is fine. It's not really all that deep and the scene with everyone singing was heartwarming, but I feel like Summer Wars did it better. The Koi Koi scene climax is superior in every regard to this film, and the characterization was somewhat better despite having a vastly larger cast. (At the very least they had more personality) Kayak guy was funny though.
All in all I still enjoyed the film and if you are willing to shut your mind off and love it for what it is, I think you'll have fun too. I mostly enjoy watching anime movies for the low commitments and typically better quality and I think this movie succeeds in being a quality production. It has issues, but it's still a positive experience.
