Its generic slop by anime standards. Like yeah anime is meant for teenagers and young adults so you can’t be too critical over fanservice or flat YA novel Gary sue tier character writing or forgetting to write an actually compelling reason for the villian trapping them in the digital world by he time its over.

Anime in general is not meant to be high art but SAO goes the extra mile to be uninteresting bland slop that appeals to the lowest common denominator. The isekai genre has done a lot better over the decade since SAO initially released things like rezero blow it out if the water in terms of actually interesting plot and suspense.