It's actually really nice. Much better than Ruby/Sapphire and Diamond/Pearl (Platinum was surprisingly good though because of the Giratina subplot, but Black/White still beat it), but not quite on the level of Red/Blue or Gold/Silver. Honestly this is the first gen since Gold/Silver where I'm actively engaged in playing the in-game part rather than saying "ok I'm just going to blitz through this as fast as I can so I can transfer my old stuff over and start the competitive aspect".
The story so far has been very enjoyable. I heard they took out some of the sexual inneuendo from the Japanese version though
In the japanese version, going in the Ferris Wheel with a hiker resulted in a dialogue with a lot of sexual innuendo (ej, "Boy it is sure wet, hot, and sweaty up here...you feel me boy?"). There's also a hint in Castelia City about an orgy party going on ("Eek! the man over the elevator touched me! Is that the kind of party they're having up there?")
...but I can imagine why they did. They did leave one gem where you get to ride the Ferris Wheel alone with a Female Clerk trainer and she starts sobbing and asks you to hold her while the screen fades to black...then she asks you to ride it again with her sometime

. Apparently it's also littered with Mother 3 references, but I'm not familiar with Mother 3, so you'll have to ask Waffle about that. The only thing that pisses me off about the storyline is that Team Plasma seems like another incompetent, bumbling group under the leadership of a manipulative ******* much like Team Magma/Aqua and Team Galactic were. **** these ineffectual *******s, bring back Team Rocket. They were the only group I could really take seriously because they're just criminals rather than some group with a well-intentioned yet extreme cause. Team Rocket just want to steal money and conduct horrible experiments on Pokemon. **** yeah : coolshades :.
The presentation is nice too. Music is good but the graphics are phenomenal imo. The stationary bridge sequence was unreal. They also have some really nice shots of the Ferris Wheel and the Charizard Bridge (seriously, that's what they called it because it looks so...majestic XD. Not even kidding, they say something almost akin to that). And the cities are so much more vast.
Gameplay's much faster, and some of the gym leaders are really hard. If you're not going in to the 2nd or 4th gyms with ONE certain kind of Pokemon, you WILL get wrecked even if you're overleveled. I heard the 3rd one was pretty hard too, but I blew by that handily with the com mon bird.
Initially, I didn't like the new designs at all, but since playing it I've really warmed up to some of them. Honestly I just thought my runthrough was just going to involve my starter + 5 herp derp mons for the lulz/HM slave potential. My two favorites by far are Serperior (grass snake) and Hydreigon (dark/dragon hydra), and both of their designs outdo anything Gen 3 or 4 came up with (I only liked 1 or 2 designs from Gen 3, and the only reaon Gen 4 had as many good designs as it did were because of all the evolutions to previous gen Pokemon). Hell Serperior is probably my favorite starter design of all time baring Charizard. Other Pokemon I ended up liking are Zebstrika (Thunderhorse...obv XD), Zekrom, Braviary, Excadrill, Krookodile, Galvantula, and Zoroark. And of course I like all the obviously herp derp Pokemon in their own special way :D.
Haven't run into any triple battles yet. Rotation battles are lots of fun though.
Honestly, as much as I want to recommend this to you...I would say wait until Gray. The 3rd versions are consistently better than the original versions and if the leap in quality is as big as it was from Diamond/Pearl to Platinum, then Gray will probably end up being just as enjoyable as Red/Blue and Gold/Silver.
Edit: Oh they also have "Metal Slime" type Pokemon in the form of Audino, so in-game grinding isn't as painful as it once was.
Edit #2: Also Nate notified me as to the hilarity of the **** Monkey's White Pokedex info...which somehow made it past American censors and is still in the game. I'll c/p it for you once I get to work.
Pokedex said:
Darumaka's droppings are hot, so people used to put them in their clothes to keep themselves warm.