Being a continuation of the previous season, the beginning of the story felt well paced after the very action packed second half of the last season. And gives other characters time to shine since our protagonist is taking a backseat. Which I greatly appreciate giving weight to Kirito's actions at the end of Alicization. The world is forever changed, and seemingly he's doomed them while not being able to help himself. It's a great concept that actually felt like it was followed through, him getting the backseat while the world moves without him. My main issue with this lies in the fact that we don't really advance any already existing character that get screen time and instead (mild spoiler ahead) we get a small episode dedicated to a general who's very unlikeable due to him being afraid to go to war, despite the fact that even normal soldiers are willing to die, and many die because of his cowardice. That starts him off great to be at fault for losing lives but nothing comes of it other than "I'm not afraid now" and then we don't really see him at all for the rest of the show. This is a reoccurring issue with supporting characters.
Like characters on the other side of the war, when we get to see their perspective its not that I feel malice, but its the fact I don't care about any of them other than a surface level connection. When bad things happen to people around them, I don't feel too terrible outside "oh no that's bad." It feels as though the progression of characters is more time wasted than anything. The certain character that meets my description here isn't seen almost at all past the first half.
Another issue I had was Alice as a character in this season, yes I'm happy she got the spotlight to build her up. I do like her relationship with Bercouli, I like that we see the payoff of her living again with her sister. But I don't like that they made her fall for Kirito. It feels disingenuous when apparently the author has stated that her appreciation for him lies in loyalty and admiration, not love. Her knowing later that he is in a relationship with Asuna yet still seems to insist her own feelings for him makes her less likeable. All for the audience to have one more girl to ship with Kirito. I liked it in the last season where they had just a companion relationship with the same goal in mind. But, (from my knowledge) this is the fault of the adaptation rather than the source material. So I won't fault the author for this change.

Besides these two issues, I didn't have many more issues on this season. Small things like Gabriel being a seemingly flat villain, or that the battles start to feel unnecessarily drawn out. Everything else is more nit-picky than anything, like the same animation given to soldiers on the battlefield. Overall enjoyable but still not as good as the last season and doesn't offer much other than story progression. Unfortunately characters don't grow outside new introduction characters whom we don't care for much.