The professional side, the science, is held up with great respect and considerable accuracy. These guys are doing really neat stuff at the university and we get to see their enthusiasm and success with it. That's very cool and appealing and a positive light on STEM professionals that's uncommon in popular culture.

The personal side, the geekdom, is held up for mockery. The show brings up comics and science fiction and video games mostly as punching bags for the girls to trash and feel socially superior. That's the negative vapid stereotyping that critics complain about.

Whether you like TBBT depends on which of those has more impact on you. If you like the science and don't mind the anti-geekery, you'll like the show. If the anti-geekery hits too close to home, you'll hate it.

(Side note, I'm conflicted on whether to participate in this subthread. It's Reddit-style topic drift on intentionally misinterpreting the submission title and ignoring its content. But there's good discussion happening here anyway.)

The first 3 seasons are quite funny and with plenty of sciency stuff, but it starts declining around the 3rd or 4th season. The season 4 episode featuring Sheldon's robotic telepresence and the Steve Wozniak cameo is perhaps the high point in humor, after which the whole thing goes pointless.