Warning, this review may contain spoilers.

First impressions: When I first got into this show, I thought this would be a good show. Oh how I was wrong!

Story: 3/10
In the year 2022 humanity has managed to make a completely virtual environment-welcome to spreading autism online!

The premise for Sword Art Online is pretty much a trapped in a video game world kind of setting with the twist being that if you die in the game, then you die for real. I would like to add that as a player of video games myself, I could easy relate and I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

One problem I had with Sword Art Online was the romance elements which were a main focus of the story. Now I have no problem with romance being in this anime, the problem is the fact that the romance elements were poorly presented. One example is the romance between Kirito and Asuna, even though it's shown that they care deeply for each over. However, the problem is because of the time skips in the show we really don't see the transition of how they fell in love in the first place.

Another problem with the romance element is that they also had a some semi incest romance with the main character, Kirito, and his sister who is actually his cousin named Kirigaya. Now this part didn't bother me personally, but what did bother is the fact it was poorly executed with it being taken as nothing serious and just seems like it was added to just for fan-service. Which is a shame because they had some really good genuine moments in it and I feel if they took it more seriously it could have been very interesting.

Another problem I had with this show was the fact that this was a show that seemed like it wanted you to take it seriously. But I couldn't take it seriously because for some reason we have a harem in this story when a harem really wasn't needed in this type of story. And before you guys say that sword art online isn't a harem, I would like to state the sword art online is very obviously a harem show.
Another negative is also the fact they tried to add some video game to real life philosophy to make you take it more seriously and make it seem more deep and mature than it actually is. And while I was listening to this so called philosophy, I was wondering to myself what was the actual point of this. Because when shows in general have some sort of deep meaning that they want to tell you, they usually have some sort of point. For an example, for a show that has some deep meaning would probably be something like Death Note or Ergo Proxy and they pretty much told you their point fairly quickly if you are paying attention.

Now the next thing I would like to talk about is the narrative of Sword Art Online. The story line pretty much time skips all over the damn place. Also, it never shows you what is happening in the outside world while these people are trapped in this video game.

Another thing I had a problem with is that, despite this being some what of a survival game, we really don't see much of the survival aspect of the story. We don't see many people die and this show usually only implies that people have died.

Characters: 2/10
The main character is just a bland Gary Stu who is over-powered, gets chicks, and make other men look like jerks.

The side characters are very one note. Also, these characters are the most bland I have seen in an anime to date. There is no character development. With all the shit these people had to go through, you would have expected some of these people to have major physiological issues, but they don't. There is no investment into the characters because of all the time skips.

The villains in this show are very one note as well. For villains in this show We have got the troll, a rapist, and a group of people who kill people for fun. So pick your poison

Art: 8/10
The animation is just a godsend on your eyes. The backgrounds are done fantastically. The fights scenes are good. It also has some pretty decent CGI. This is a show you should see in HD if you can.

It has a pretty generic style to it and the characters design are ok as well.

Sound: 8/10
The OST is great I could listen to the soundtrack for hours. The OST was composed by Yuki Kajiura who has also done the OST for Fate Zero.

The voice acting for both sub and dub where decent as well, but I would recommend the dub.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Now to Sword Art Online's credit, I can see that this anime had some great ideas for the story and characters, but didn't put it to full use. I love the fight scenes and the OST, but other than that it is pretty much bad in every other aspect. So I liked it but for very superficial reasons.

Overall: 4/10
So overall, this is a type of show that took style over content and when it tries to be deep and it ends up looking stupid. But the only positive I would say about it overall is that it's an anime that is very easy to get into, so it's a good entry level show for those who are new to anime. But if you have quite bit of experience with anime, then you will probably dislike this show for how much of a train wreck it is.