This is coming from a non-anime fan. I've only seen one anime before in my life, I usually don't like them, and it took a lot of convincing to get me to try this.

All that I said, I found the show to be extremely engaging. I didn't expect much from the plot - hearing the summery made it sound like something where they came up with the action scenes first and the story second - but it was definitely good enough to keep me interested. The characterization decreases massively the further you get from the main characters, but the protagonists are likable enough.

Animation-wise, the show seems to spend every possible bit of its budget on the action scenes and save very little for the rest, and it shows. All the action scenes are animated beautifully and the motion has an excellent sense of freedom about it. In the dialogue scenes there are some pretty glaring budget cuts, like reusing animations or a great many scenes that are just various flashes of still poses rather than any motion. Still, it's not a deal-breaker.

The pacing is excellent in the beginning of the show but grinds to a halt somewhere around episode 8. There are cases where 2-3 episodes could EASILY be collapsed into one. The show dangles enough hanging plot threads in front of your nose to keep you interested, but it becomes obvious later in the series that a lot of the episodes can be summarized in the little preview blurb from the previous episode.

The music is most prominent during the action scenes, and that's where it's at it's best. I'm a sucker for grand orchestral and band pieces so I really enjoyed this aspect.

The presentation of the monsters is a touch inconsistent but is ultimately pulled off well. All variants of these "titans" are bizarrely proportioned in one way or another, and it gives them a good sense of alien creepiness. A few in particular have a good "nightmare fuel" edge to them, including all three named titans and the one from the end of episode 1. However, while there are many scenes that portray the titans as vicious monsters there are also a few that portray them as rather dopey, and there are many, particularly the abnormals, that you can't help but laugh at.

The story has that anime problem of dumping mountains of dialogue on you. It contributes to the previously mentioned pacing problem in many places. Without spoiling anything, there's an episode near the middle that... well, you know Ben Croshaw? What he said was rather relevant: "Guy pulls a gun at the beginning of an episode, fires it at the end, and everything in between was angst! I wouldn't mind, but he missed!". It wasn't exactly a gun and he didn't exactly miss, but the point is that all the angsty drama and words, words, words get in the way of the story's better bits.

Overall, while I focused on the flaws a lot here, there is a lot this show does right. The world is consistently very engaging and keeps me wanting to find out what happens next. For people like me skeptical about anime in general, I say it's worth it.

Oh, and Armin is apparently a guy. This took me a few episodes to figure out.