Right, now that we've got that out of the way
First off, I thought that on its own merits as a standalone movie it was phenomenal. It had all the hallmarks of a Star Wars movie. Great visuals, actions, pacing, the mythology. They were all there. It was quite entertaining in its own right.
Now, if I may put on my uberfan critics hat..
I felt that it was more like a reboot of Episide IV than a sequal to Episode VI. I've heard this sentiment from a lot of other fans. I guess they decided to play it safe and just recycled all the plot, theme and base story of Episode IV. This is unfortunate (for an uberfan like me), as I was hoping for a somewhat original story. Like most, I didn't like Episode I either, but at least it had somewhat of an original story/theme/plot (within the context of the Star Wars Universe of course). Actually, I felt All Episodes I through VI where pretty original despite their faults (bad acting, dialogue, etc). Episode VII unfortunately didn't feel at all original. You can take the entire script of Episode IV and translate it to Episode VII by just changing genders, and inverting a few themes. Even the ending where they lead into Episode VIII felt like we were just about to watch Episode V all over again, and revisiting all of those themes and plots.