As a work of fiction, HPMOR is little more than an exercise in repackaging genre tropes and pop culture references. It doesn’t have a coherent theme; the execution varies from mediocre to poor. Plot holes abound, characters vanish inexplicably, etc. In many ways, it’s a less successful version of Ready Player One that’s clamped on to HP’s coattails. Of course, that formula can be entertaining, but it has limited impact.

Lest you think I have an ax to grind with Yudkowsky, I did enjoy Three Worlds Collide. It shares many problems with HPMOR (the writing is inconsistent and the world-building is incoherent) but it at least tells a tight story with a beginning, middle and end. I’d say it’s about as effective as the median submission to Amazing Stories back in the 60s.

If I may, comparing fanfiction to original work is apples to oranges.

When writing harry potter, Rowling had to craft a world with characters and rules, make it coherent enough and tread a compelling story through it. She made the legos and then crafted something with them.

This guy came to her crafted world, and moved around a few bits, changed a character here, change a few rules there - but the backbone of the work was made before.

It's just not the same ballpark

If you enjoyed HPMOR, you'll probably enjoy this very detailed, criticial review of HPMOR.

https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/