SAO was an awful series. The worst. I stopped watching after they got married or something. Seriously the worst. Also, apparently the author or whatever didn't know how to write female characters so he made them all love interests.
To be honest, I actually enjoyed SAO once I looked at it as a female romance series set in a shonen world rather than a male shonen series derailed by a romance plot, and I feel your ability to enjoy it depends a lot on the way you look at the show. If you want shonen antics then you should probably go watch something else, but if you want a more female-aimed romance plot that just happens to take place in a shonen world then dig in and enjoy. I mean seriously, look at that first intro. If the whole "cut back and forth between scenes of Asuna and Kirito for the majority of the intro, begin to close with relaxing domestic scenes of both of them, and end with a final shot that includes their two crossed swords and a flower" (placed closer than the swords) doesn't just scream "ROMANCE ANIME" at you then you need to go watch a wider variety of shows.
And really a lot of SAO plays out like a female protagonist romance novel that just happens to have the guy as the main character in the beginning rather than the girl. Even the whole harem-hinting plays into the idea; the idea of showing that the main guy is wanted by other women but "he chose me and will always be faithful" is not exactly a new one in the realm of female romance, and is exactly what happens. Regardless of hints, SAO always ends up shutting down other choices pretty definitely in favor of the KiritoxAsuna one (
and it explains a lot of the lack of early characterization on female characters other than Asuna; in an average female romance show a lot of their early purpose would just be to enhance the fact that Kirito is supposed to be desirable rather than to stand as true characters in their own right). Even the GGO arc manages to bring in Asuna at the beginning, ending, and a few other times throughout, and she's not even involved in that arc except through Kirito. And heck, in the latest arc Asuna
is the main character; Kirito shows up for like 1-2 episodes and his only real purposes are to help kickstart the arc and support Asuna and the new character while they deal with stuff. (And Asuna + new side-character characterization wise? It was good enough that I spent pretty much the whole last episode crying my eyes out.
)
Of course it's not free of flaws. The fact that they have an annoying tendency of extremely compressing arcs or adding in tiny filler arcs in their seasons is rather annoying; I think they would have been much better off doing either two shorter seasons or 1 extra-long one for their first season. And while the filler arc in their second season was okay, it was limited by the fact that that's all it really was; filler. Additionally the fact that the shortened arc in the second half of season one basically demotes Asuna to a plot coupon really bugged me as well (though I guess if that was all that they were going to do with her in the whole arc then it's probably a good thing that they shortened it
). That said if you can get past the few shortened/filler arcs, and you are willing to look at it as a world that mainly revolves around Asuna rather than Kirito, I definitely think it's an enjoyable show.