They took the "practical effects" thing a bit too far in terms of not creating interesting and new visuals. That was one thing that Lucas did well in the prequels - he created completely new worlds that were visually stunning. The concept of a city being the entire planet in Coruscant with all the levels of massive towers. Naboo which was earth like, but also had an entire underwater world there. Mustafar with all the lava. Geonosis, Kamino, etc.

Also the aliens in the new film seemed pretty generic vs. the Lucas films which always brought something new.

Outside of the visuals though, I don't have any problems with the new film. I don't mind the recurring themes from the old movies. Some of those themes are what makes Star Wars Star Wars. Even the new death star served a purpose - it destroyed the senate and Republic fleet which put the "good guys" in the position of being the underdog again.

I initially had some plot issues with it in terms of how powerful Rey is, and some of the quirks of what happened, but most of those are because we don't know everything yet. We don't know some of the backstory of these characters and what they have really been through. Some of that is being saved for the future films, and some of it will be revealed through books and other media as far as the time between ROTJ and this movie.

So overall I'd give it a solid B rating.