Han Solo died

the good:
-Ford finally got his wish and killed Solo. Great death scene.
-Driver was fantastic - so glad they didn't mess around with trying to keep his real face a mystery
-Ridley was also fantastic.
-loved the lightsaber battle between a weakened Ren and two inexperienced lightsaber-wielders

The bad:
-another death star taken out with no suspense
-The aliens. So horrible - none felt believable and nearly all of them looked terrible. Snoke and Maz being the obvious standouts as horrible (and pointless) CGI.
-the ending shot. Empire had a great cliffhanger by setting pieces in motion - this felt like cutting out right at the start of a conversation which felt cheap
-the need for winks (the chess game being the most obnoxious)

Han's death or Kylo Ren. And I agree that there was something missing in Han/Leia's interaction with each other even though it made me feel something.

Just about everything with the new characters worked really well. I loved Finn's bravado and Rey's tenacity.

Kylo Ren. Over the last few months I've often said it's kind of lame that the villain of the movie is an imposing dark-cloaked, dark-masked evil force user. Well, surprise, they really humanized him and made him an emotionally complex character

It looked absolutely fantastic. Best 3D I've seen since Avatar

Yeah, the fact that Luke basically wasn't in it sucked, but I like how much intrigue there is for the next one. I'm especially interested in Snoke, as well.

Brilliant fake-out with basically the entire thrust of all of the trailers being that Finn was the nascent Force-sensitive, when it was actually Rey.

The whole thing didn't seem contextualized very well. We weren't given any real information about the nascent Republic or the First Order or how their mutual struggle for control of the galaxy has proceeded since the end of the last film

Leia. I'm sorry, Fisher just looks terrible, and her performance sucked. And the expository dialogue between her and Han was awful

Destroying a superweapon as the final big set piece. Yawn.

-To me, it will be impossible to view the OT.the same knowing what comes next. They didnt really defeat anyone, all the main characters ended up basically as they were in the beginning - alone, with only Luke having.seemingly progressed in life.

-I hate how much of a rip off this of ANH. This does not require.explanation. The whole thing is so.predictable.

-The death of Han Solo is horrible, means nada to the plot as Magnus pointed out, and was just a ridiculous emotional play. Han was everybody's favorite character from the OT and he goes out like such a bitch. Not Obi-Wan, knowing the death will only enhance Luke's strength. He just gets owned by his "rogue son". That whole scene was well executed, sure, but in context just terrible.

Loved:
Number one by far was the lightsaber fight between BEN(!!!) and Rey. It is definitely on par with the OT duels. The moment when he is trying to get the saber and she takes it first was one of the loudest applauses in a movie I have ever seen. She was just brilliant.
BB-8. Damn what a perfect addition to the universe. I love BB-8!
The reveal of the Falcon. When Rey says "That ship is garbage" (or whatever the actual line is) and they panned over to see it in all is "hunk of junk" glory filled me with such delight.
LUKE! Just seeing him at the very end of the movie. Ugh. I knew he wasn't going to say anything once it was wrapping up. Rey HAS to be his daughter right!?
Maz
Leia's role. It was perfect just to have her in a couple scenes with very little dialogue as a distinguished general.
As I said before; Han. Han. Han. I was definitely worried that he was just back to being a smuggler after all these years but the reveal that Kylo is his son and he was distraught about it made sense for him to revert back to those ways.
As much as it made me cry (I cried a lot) I actually thought the death of Han worked. He was at the point where he knew he was either going to come home with his son or not come home at all. When he touched his face after he was stabbed was heartbreaking and Chewie's reaction crushed me (and his great shot at Kylo was badass)
Ben Solo is his name and it made me happy.
Poe and Finn escape
Most of the practical effects
So many other things. I'm coming back to this once I see it again.
Oh! and finding out that Daniel Craig was the trooper that Rey mind tricked was awesome.

I get people's gripes about it being a rehash of A New Hope because it is. It almost perfectly aligns with it but I think what JJ and Kasdan did is give us something familiar to start us off with so people can jump back in and change things ever so slightly with much bigger implications.

Didn't love
One scene stood out for me as one I wish was either different or not in at all and that was the scene with the giant space monsters. I wasn't a fan of the cgi with that and the two gangs coming for Solo screamed "Guardians" to me so for a second I was thinking about that.
Obviously underused characters. I get that it's the first one in a new trilogy but I wanted more and it's so hard to squeeze in soooo much in just 2 hours, some of them just left me wanting more.
Captain Phasma! I wanted so much more and wanted her to be more of a badass. I hope she comes back with Kylo and Hux but I was for sure let down with her. It's funny because she essentially went through all of the Boba Fett moments of Empire and Jedi. Badass intro. Let down of an ending(?)
Now this is one thing that I really hated and then turned into loved in the span of a minute:
When Snoke was introduced I mentally sighed so hard that he was a giant. I didn't like that at all. I was thinking that I did not want to see this giant dude walking around with our characters but then when it was revealed that he was a hologram I not only had a sigh of relief, I thought it was brilliant! Of course he would want to look that big and imposing! Who wouldn't!? Great great trickery.

Rey was Luke's apprentice but her memory was wiped, which is why she's able to use the force like she did.