Beginning of SAO was great. It had a very strong start with a seemingly original plot. After the first boss fight, my opinion on the anime fell. It jumped around on the floors with random mini stories. Although some of them were completely useless to the plot, the Black Cats episode sort of highlighted why Kirito prefers to be a solo player. When he married Asuna and moved to the forest, i found it pretty stupid. You have an action anime, and they decide to drop all action for an episode or two and have a nice lovey-dovey family arc. It didnt really bother me, but just seemed out of place. The Alfheim arc was unneeded. They could have had everyone return from SAO, meet up at the real world, and dropped it off and i would have been happy. The Alfheim arc was, as one of my friends put it, "A decent anime spiraling into virtual incest." Didnt like that arc overall. The ending was somewhat satisfying. Everyone met up in the real world (somehow sane) and they were happy. The fact that they went back to clear SAO again was kinda cool, but the fact that Kirito kept his Alfheim character was stupid.