[DragonOsman]

Spoiler for reply to Elandrial:

Firstly, just to confirm: You've read all of LNs, in he fan translations, too, right? Not just the English ones?

Anyway, yeah, while I do agree that the romance seemed to take a back seat after Fairy Dance, there are still times where there were still good KiritoxAsuna moments like the kiss before Kirito got stabbed by that syringe full of succinylcholine. Kirito even proposed marriage to Asuna, though he also admitted being scared of her mom and whether she'd accept him as Asuna's boyfriend and future husband.

And also in Alicization, you can see when they switch to the real world how much Asuna loves Kirito and wants him back, even infiltrating Rath's Ocean Turtle. She even logs in to Underworld to save him after he becomes a vegetable sometime after defeating Administrator, though Suguha, Lisbeth and Sinon do so as well.

I've read all of the main LNs, by the way. I'm reading SAO Progressive right now via the translations on Mamue's archive. I'll PM you the link to Mamue's post on Defan's blog if you're interested.

I'm confident that KiritoxAsuna will still be the endgame pairing, and I'm also hopeful for it. It just seems like it's going to be a bigamy situation with KiritoxAsunaxAlice in Underworld and an OTP situation with just KiritoxAsuna in the real world, going by the ending for the Web Novel version. In the Web Novel side-story There Is But One Ultimate Way, we see that Kirito is with all of the girls who love him, in Underworld, on a large bed. Though everyone except Kirito and Yui is asleep. Yui explains that even though she wouldn't allow him to go for anyone other than Asuna in the real world, ALo, GGO or any other game, she'd still allow it in Underworld, and that in Underworld, he was even allowed to have a full harem situation. If that side-story turns out to be canon, it'd be amazing, though I'm fine with the ending I mentioned of the Web Novel version, too.

According to the Web Novel (I haven't read it myself by the way - this is just secondhand information), Asuna's greatest rival is Alice. Everyone else has already given up.

I only saw the anime upto and including Fairy Dance. But I liked it. I've read the entire LN series aside from Progressive through fan translations, as well, though I'm now reading Progressive via the translations in Mamue's archive. It's my second time reading "Aria in the Starless Night," though, same for "Rondo of the Transient Sword", since I'd also read them on Baka-Tsuki before they were taken off.

I actually really like this series. Though, like @relentlessflame said, whether a fan likes the series or not depends on "hooked" them to it in the first place, I guess. But I'm not sure what it is for me. I just like Kirito and Asuna and I'm hoping to see them together and the end, though I don't mind of Alice is also with them (only in Underworld, though, and also maybe a bit the in the real world). The fights in SAO, ALO, GGO and Underworld are also good.

Spoiler for Alicization - don't open unless you've already read the novel this far:

I'm annoyed by the lack of Kirito x Asuna moments after their last kiss before Kirito had to be hooked up to the STL to fix his brain from the damage caused because of the syringe full of succinylcholine that he was stabbed with right after the kiss. My only saving grace there is that Asuna didn't give up and infiltrated the Ocean Turtle to be with Kirito again. She logged in to Underword to save him, too, along with Suguha, Lisbeth and Sinon.

Also, while there's a lot of time skips in the first two LN Volumes and, by extension, the anime adaptation of those, some of it is filled in with the side-stories in the LNs (though some of them are also in the anime - just, not all of them; though, for some, there were changes made).