I realize this question was asked really long ago, I may have overlooked this question like any other show, but I felt the need to answer it. (spoiler below for the anime until season 3)!!!
There is talk of AOT being over-hyped by people who have only watched Season 1 or a few episodes of Season 1. AOT is carefully planning its plot, showing scenes that are not clear to the audience, making us think what might have happened. It has no surprising ingredients and yet surprises us. For example: When Eren got the Attack Titan's power, his father is shown injecting serum, hinting to the audience that it was actually several times but we really know about it later . Another example was when Commander Irwin asked Eren, "What do you see?" Who is the real enemy? Which suggests that humans are actually the real enemy.
The system of walls represents the way society is built and the hierarchy that exists there.
When they are fighting titans, a magical enemy it sounds hard but not complicated, you can just draw your sword and cut them where you act like all humans are united but they are not. Although the human's enemy is the human himself, this was always true throughout the show, but when people realize this, it becomes difficult and complicated for people to say that there was just one magical enemy.
I would say that people didn't understand it at first, they are implicit signals of what is coming next. That doesn't mean last season wasn't good, it was actually very good, enjoyable and at its highest.
And the gore, the fight scenes are realistic, they are a necessary part in the anime and the characters relate to the real personalities of the humans. For example: I would say that my personality is like gin, at first he thinks he is going to do things straight but it doesn't happen and his judgment changes but he is not just influenced by other's opinion And knows how to think for himself and flexible enough to change his opinion. And I think it's much better than saying that the main character was weak before and it seemed relatable.
And yes, it destroys most shonen anime with one line.
And people die, it recognizes that we have to sacrifice pawns to win the game.
In one of the answers, a man said that Eren killed people while fighting Annie, and he didn't even care, oh no, he just faced reality, accepted what had to be done and did it. He clearly saw the kind of person Irwin was and could risk his life and sacrifice others over that decision.
And none of the characters are just one sided simple, Eren says that she will only be the **** of the Titans, but there are times when she hesitates and Mikasa says she will always save Eren, but also random Doesn't deviate from the way they used to fight Titans while scouting in a typical shonen show. Jean, in one instance, says of Rainer how he was a boy they could depend on but they simply forgot about it (though there is more to the story) and it was all just the first season ( 24 episodes). We just forgot it or couldn't do much in the show.
There are anime where you can just skip the arcs and still stick with the story, but here every episode is important, they don't waste their time detailing the episodes. Every scene is important. And what is not needed is not shown.
I have watched many shows not only anime and most shows have the plot being developed slowly in the first season making the first season boring or not as good as compared to the other seasons but attack on titan It has always been tough and I believe the length of the show has not been affected by its popularity.
One day, I was randomly looking at aot reviews on imdb, I didn't see all of them, but almost all of them I gave a rating of 9 or 10. However, it only has a rating of 8.7 and it's a shame, that so low compared to its greatness. You can see it's individual episode ratings, it's almost on top.
I don't really like the anime community, it's almost like a religion or a creed, sometimes people fixate on a certain number of anime and are always like it's the best and I won't even watch that show , that's exaggerated. .. blah... blah... and they rate other shows really low. They are not enjoying the show nor allowing others to enjoy it. I read somewhere that more of us watch binha than rick and morty, it's good that anime is getting popular but only normal shonen is being seen by many, hero/villain and different terms for them Is.
I am not saying that such anime are not good, they are good, if I compare them with American movies, they will be avengers or marvel movies and dc movies, it does not mean that they are bad, many people Many people see it like this but they don't get that high rating!!!
And AOT is listed as shonen, but it's like a scene show with a bit of shonen touch, very little of it. A little bit of each (most) style and that's what makes it great.
I'm not the guy who lists the shows I've watched and ranks them, but it's clearly the best show I've seen.