Sword Art Online hate was artificially manufactured to shift the consumer's focus into loving the next big anime, Attack on Titan; your thoughts are a product of propaganda. AoT's first arc suffered a lot of the same flaws that SAO did.
Tend to agree with the futa lover here. The original Sword Art Online was good, solidly good, but not great. The sequels were much diminished though, from meh to bad.
Attack on Titans is the same, solidly good for what it is, but not great.
And humans are idiot lemmings that will literally snort poison when it suits their herd mentality.
@JayMark SAO was always slightly above mediocre, but with a few articles, blog posts, and memes, I got to see people go from treating it like the second coming of Christ (due to good marketing) to them treating it like the worst anime/manga to ever be serialized, as the next big thing (AoT) would be treated like the second coming of Christ for a short while.
Idiot lemmings made to be exploited. it's interesting how something can be mediocre but hype can change perception. That said, humans are lizard brain and both animes had amazing visuals and vibrant animation.