At the moment, the only problems I'm seeing with the writing is the fact that there's a Hell of a lot of ground to cover, so there's a lot of exposition and scene-settiing in the first episode. People with a thirty-second attention span and rigid book devotees are going to find it hard going, for sure. As for reviews, most mainstream reviewers/critics hate fantasy to begin with - they want gritty realism, curent social relevance and dysfunctional families. Those who do specialise in fantasy all have axes to grind. A lot of people had already made up their minds about the series from the moment the project was announced. Better to keep an eye on the viewing figures. They started high, but we'll see how they tail off (or not).

In any event, the writing is better than the turgid mess that was GoT.