Did anyone else HATE the 2nd world?

I think the threat of actual death gave the original world unquestionable edge. There was just always much more at stake.

The first part had death hanging above the characters like the sword of Damocles constantly. A fight for pure survival, which made for great drama, and tension.
The second part was a boring "save the damsel in distress princess from the evil wizard" story, and to top it all off, they made Kirito completely overpowered, so there was no actual challenge involved in reaching his goal.

I'm in the middle of watching the second half now, and it certainly isn't as strong as the first half. It isn't just the lesser stakes either; the supporting cast in general seems just much less interesting, and there's much less mystery about the whole plot. The first half had the ongoing mystery about why someone would even make an MMORPG that kills its own players in real life, whereas the villain of the second half pretty explains himself upfront as being a nasty pervert.

I actually think the beginning episodes about Kirito readjusting to the real world were relatively strong; him trying sheathe his wooden sword after the kendo duel with his sister says much more than anything else has in the second half of the series, at least so far.

Yet I can't stop myself from watching this for some reason.

"An image can say a thousand words, whereas a word cannot show a thousand images." - N.W.R.

I liked it, honestly. The stakes were still high, just in a different way. Plus I had gotten used to Kirito and Asuna's adorableness together and I really wanted to see them reunited.

===========================
http://www.sogooditsawesome.com

Not at all. I liked it. But I suppose it's because I had already built up that emotional investment in Kirito and Asuna, and wanted to see them win. I probably wouldn't have liked it as much otherwise. As others on this thread have said, in the second world the stakes were lower (though still pretty high for Asuna), the supporting characters much less interesting, the villain a disgusting slug of a man, and the whole incest thing was... unusual, to say the least. But I still love the show because I still love Kirito and Asuna and it still hadn't finished resolving their storyline from the first part of the show.

Pretty much yeah. I'd give the first half a solid 8.5/10....the second was a weak 5/10 at most.

And why wasn't Asuna there at the end?

I feel that the ALO arc was a bit too slow for my liking. The risks were high, for Kirito at least, but I feel like GGO was more intense and serious.

I'm still disappointed that for that storyline, it dissolved a bit too quick. Don't get me wrong, I like Alfheim a lot, I do. But aside from what was going on with Asuna, it felt like there was nothing really going on, and it just seemed to forget about Death Gun.

Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing. -- Orson Welles

Same here. Enjoyed the first half of the the first season, but the rest of this anime is just a pain to watch.