So... Sword Art Online.

If you are not enjoying it then definitely do not continue. It doesn't change much. If however you found the premise interesting I'd suggest the .hack// franchise. Much better execution of the whole VR gaming setting and includes numerous anime, games, novels and manga.

And log Horizon that i see has been recommended by quite a few people I'd say is somewhere in the middle, at least by my criteria. It's not as bad as SAO but it's still quite generic and most of the characters are pretty flat, their whole personalities being built around a single "comical" or "badass" trait with rare instances of actual development

SAO had good idea, and for me first 4 episodes are quite good, but after that everything takes nosedive.
SAO I is quite bad anime, while SAO II improves a lot comparing to predecessor, but still continues expending Kirito's harem in stand of its characters personalities.

If you like this theme, trapped in VR, I would recommend Log Horizon as one of newer titles, but its kinda slow. But my favorite is dot-hack// series but its all over the mediums.... games, books, anime...

Should you continue or pick up some other title, well that is really up to you...

SAO is very overrated. First episodes are awesome but after that we get another very boring and cliche anime. The Log Horizon 1 sezon is just "good" but second is boring cliche that most episodes should be turned into ova.....The best anime about mmo or I should rather say the king is not very popular series .hack// It have incredible storyline but there are two problem with this series. Almost all anime from this series are boring (exception is ova .hack//Quantum http://myanimelist.net/anime/9332/.hack//Quantum) not many action, too much talking and the second is that you will needed console PS2 because most of the storyline is in the game. Well.. there is still manga but it's not worth to read. If you are intrested then try watch .hack//Sign if you will like it then the order that you should watch/play rest is
.hack//Sign (anime)
.hack// Infection (ps2)
.hack// Mutation (ps2)
.hack//Outbreak (ps2)
.hack// Quarantine (ps2)
..hack//Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu (they made it as anime for kids >.>)
.hack//Roots (anime)
.hack//G.U (all 3 part for PS2)
.Hack//Link (game on PSP only in Japan ;/ )
And if you don't have PS2 you can watch
.hack//G.U. Terminal Disc
https://youtu.be/MnGeCb0X8Ls
this is a summary (made as a journal of professor who study "The World" ) from Infection to the beginning of .hack//Roots but watch this only to the File 05 !!! Because rest of them have spoiler of .hack//g.u. that why rest of them are worth to watch after beating the game.

if u are 5 episodes in and bored... just stop, it won't get any better. The first part (first 11 episodes I think) are not that bad, but the 2nd part of the first season it's a clear filler, and it totally feels like it.
So yeah, there's lot's of cool animes to watch, just go watch something you enjoy rather then force yourself to watch something that already got you bored.

It will not significantly get better after the fifth episode or anything

You're doing it wrong if you're watching SAO 2.
Watch the first season it's much better.

I've never had anyone directly recommend it to me but I kept seeing people praise it so much so I ended up watching it. Not sure if it let me down because I had high expectations due to the praise it had received or not, but it was quite boring at times. If you didn't like it, just drop it. You can pick it up if you have nothing else to watch at some point.

As for Kaiji, if you are enjoying it, you should check out Akagi and One Outs. Their main characters have similar traits, they are voiced by the same actor (at least on the original, not sure if there are dubs) and I think they all have the same director. They are all pretty different in what they deal with but they somehow feel similar (possibly due to the main characters' mind games and gambling, in a sense).

i actually enjoyed SAO a lot but after watching Log Horizon (which has almost same plot) the doubt about SAO started :D

View attached image.

parasite and tokyo no ghoul are y current favourites but will have a look at kaijji

Sailor Moon & Initial D only true animu ever! :V

Personally I really enjoyed the plot for the first half of the anime, but the other half is meh.
If you didn't like the first few episodes, then I doubt you'd enjoy the rest of the show.

Watch something different if you didn't like it, I liked it a lot, but opinions are different, why would you continue watching something is boring to you?

animu general

Gintama better than SAO, you must watch it

If I agreed with backlisting I would blacklist you for not finishing it :P (not for not finding it appealing, since that is personal taste)

Here's the reason why so many people enjoy SAO. Because it's extremely simple. A lot of people are gonna say "oh it looks cool and so it's good". The art in the show is really good, but everything else about the show is pretty bad. I'm not too sure why everyone loves it. The action scenes aren't that bad though. I've actually seen people say "I like video games and SAO is about video games so it's really cool".

SAO is ok untill they go back to the real world, season 2 became awfull as soon as the main character looked like a girl, Log Horizon for me

A-1 Pictures is the studio that made SAO. There's a reason, I have it on my blacklist - everything they create is really, really bad, and SAO seems like the best they created, maybe besides Fractale, which wasn't that good either.

I actually enjoyed SAO very much, since it was my first anime-kinda thing for a long long time, then I watched better stuff like SnK (which is becoming another Naruto, but the manga is great), Death Note, Soul Eater, FMA:Brotherhood and many others (most of the titles were Japanese) and after all of them i tried rewatching SAO and thought it was crap, so yeah.

try psycho pass

Kaiji is much better I think and maybe instead of Sword Art Online you can watch "Log Horizon", is the anime I wanted to watch when I started SAO as an MMORPG anime

Why is potato obligatory?

SAO was the worst thing I've ever watched.First 13-14 ep.s are okay but rest is purely shit.That romance shit completely destroyed that anime for me and it's the one and only anime that I've stopped watching before finishing it.

Log Horizon is 10 times better than that piece of garbage.

I've loved SAO so far and it's currently gone a little off script by going all ALO on me, not sure how I feel about it. Loved it until that moment though.