As of writing, I have read books one through six. I think the other reviews do a good job of explaining why this is good so I'd just like to get this out here. The original Sword Art Online was Reki Kawahara's first published story and it was written for a competition with a word limit and such. Which is why the source material and anime is presented the way it is and is as flawed as it is. Therefore I would say it's fair to say that with those problems in mind, the show and source material is good. The purpose of SAO Progressiveis not to rewrite the source material. Reki is attempting to keep the Canon from the OG stuff as much as possible. Reki wanted to go more in-depth with the story but he couldn't so now he is. By Reki doing this, in my opinion, he fixes many if not all of the flaws that the source material and anime had. So if you didn't like the OG, but you're still interested in the concepts of Sword Art Online I would highly recommend reading Progressive as I think your gripes have been fixed while the core is still there. If you are an SAO fan or think it was good to begin with. I think you'll very much enjoy this series as well.