Is Mahouka good, then? No. Watchable, sure, but most people won't find the message of the show very agreeable. Tatsuya, our main character, is the strongest, bestest mage alive. Even though people think he's underpowered (an "irregular") secretly he's... well, you get the picture. Mahouka is another prestige entry in the genre of fiction where a character who is the victim of social darwinist, spartan society overcomes oppression by secretly having been better than everyone else the whole time. Instead of a refutation of the system, Tatsuya is the most complicit out of any character in the show.
Mahouka is also bizarrely nationalistic for a show set in distant alternate future. The selling point according to light novel readers is that it's actually covert military fiction, but I don't think that's the redeeming factor they hoped it would be. Enemies are one-dimensional. When a casualty happens on the protagonist's side, it's a tragedy. When Tatsuya causes a casualty on the enemy side, it's a statistic. There's a real Starship Troopers moment towards the end that I won't spoil. Suffice to say, when this anime does it, it doesn't mean it satirically.
Watch this one for its cultural relevance, and because it can be funny. Maybe stay away if you're looking for something clever, rational, or aimed at adult audiences.
