So far house of the dragon is pretty good. It looks fantastic(these dragons omg), the acting is good, the dialogue is good and the plot is decent. But, if you compare it with the early seasons of Game of Thrones, it's just leagues below it in my opinion, and I will try to explain why. (Sidenote: When I refer to GOT, I am just talking about Season 1-4).

One of my main complaints is, that everything just feels a bit too heavy. The music is always dramatic, every scene feels like it wants to be very important. And that's why the scenes where it would be important to feel this heaviness, just don't hit that much. And every good show has a bit of humor in it, even if it's subtle, but that just lacks here. This isn't an emotional rollercoaster, it's just one flat line of heavy scenes.

The characters are just fine, not nearly as strong as in GOT. Otto Hightower is just not nearly as good as Tywin Lannister or Littlefinger. Viserys is the most interesting and fresh character so far in my opinion. Daemon is a bit overrated I think, not bad tho.

My probably biggest complaint is, that the Plot is a bit too "simple" (until now) in my opinion. The plotting is not nearly as subtle and intriguing as in GOT. The war in the stepstones for example really had no depth at all. But we will see, I guess the plot will get more interesting soon, GRRM is involved.

I'm also not a big fan of the time jumps, it's just a bit too much, and gives off a bit of a history documentary vibe. This is fine, but it can't compare to a really good-flowing story(like GOT).

My last complaint is, that everything just looks(and feels) a bit too polished. I can't put my finger on what it is exactly. It just doesn't feel medieval, and it looks "like a tv show" to me, somehow a bit unrealistic, I can't really dive into the world that much.

Also (without any spoilers), the end of Episode 3 was a bit worrying, the last sequence had some pretty stupid plotholes and didn't make much sense.

But let's see where it goes! For now, it's a 7.5/10 for me, but I bet it will either go up or down significantly from here. But I'm sure it won't ever be as good as S1-S4 of GOT. And this is ok and makes sense. The story of GOT is basically GRRM life's work. The story of HOT D is just a tiny part of the (obviously amazing) backstory for the main story. If it would be a better story than the main one, it would just be weird haha.

So if you are watching mainly for the plot and the characters, it won't ever beat early-GOT. If you're watching mainly for the vibe, the action and crazy dragons, it could even beat GOT for you!