Log Horizon is less death game is real and more MMO game is real. I appreciate it because it gets aspects of the MMO guild life more accurately. SAO pegs things as being an MMO but they aren't. SAO, ALO, GGO are not MMOs, they're just multiplayer RPG games with some MMO features.
I enjoy SAO because it actually has a degree of emotion in it. Sure it brings in some tropey harem elements later, but it delivers on the characters much better than other shows. I still argue Sachi is alive somewhere. When Kirito passes out fighting blue eyes, you see Sachi's face calling to him, not Asuna's. It doesn't appear to be a past flashback. What I do wish tho is they didn't take the show as fast as they did. Aincrad to me should have been a full 24 episodes where you really get to see Kirito's struggles play out. Even if its not in the novels, they should have done filler and really fleshed out the entire Aincrad time period. Made the final confrontation with Heathcliff much more meaningful as well as his relationship with Asuna.
The other arcs...are kinda short anyways. Its not like you can pad those out. ALO gives some of the emotion from Aincrad but brings in the romance cousin aspect a little heavily. GGO is all about Sinon and her character is fantastic but, I still don't see why everyone said the GGO arc was the best of them all. I'm still on Aincrad. Mother's Rosario arc should have been a very powerful story however it just felt like the excalibur interlude arc set up some real awesome questline and gave you the hopes that Klein wouldn't remain a background character, then you get Rosario dropped on you. You think..."THESE TEARS!! WHY?!! I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO BATTLE MORE GIANTS AND SEE KLEIN GET A DIGITAL GODDESS GIRLFRIEND!!!"
So I still say Aincrad is the best arc. The writer's strength really shines the most before he gets into relying on harem tropes. He's not a good harem writer, but at least the characters are better than 90% of the harem shows out there. I can stomach it for this reason. Course I've seen a lot of harems, soo many are just lame to the point you can sense the money grab they are attempting. I dunno if it was his original intent to turn it into a harem or if publishers inserted the idea.
The guy also wrote Accel World with one of the worst protagonists in anime aside from Shinji. The show isn't terrible but the fact that the protagonist is a little fat kid who always questions his worth in every scene, makes me wonder if publishers did force some changes to SAO. Accel World's MC doesn't sell. It is everything that you don't want a MC to be in Japan. Short, weak, fat...those are always background characters. Accel World of course won't get a 2nd season. No way they will take a risk with that MC again.
No Game No Life is good, its interesting, but its just a fanservice show most of the time. Worth a watch but I just found it lukewarm. I'd certainly watch a season 2 tho. Just because some of the story did have some uniqueness to it.