This is probably the best pokemon series in generations. Since GS I'd say? And since they've released very little information, it's got the magic and mystery of RB as well.
In BW, I complained about how hand-holdy it got. I sold off my copy of White 2 due to one segment where I wasn't allowed to play the game for over ten minutes, instead being pulled around a town in a long conversation chain. In XY, however, there's buttons I didn't know what they did until the eighth gym. There's things I'm still really fuzzy on. And it's fucking wonderful. I get to try things. I explore the whole map. Without having to deal with half-hour scrolling cutscenes, it frees me up and encourages me to talk to every NPC. And most NPCs reward you. At least one person in a house gives you an item and the rest give you information that's pretty useful. (Additionally, they added the great feature of having who lives in what city on the town map.)
The two flaws I was upset about (shitty camera and crappy skate controls) are gone now. The bike controls perfectly and the camera seems to follow it better in Lumiose than it did the skates. My only current complaint is the relatively small options for guys clothing late game. I want to wear a nice suit or a waiter outfit like I did in early games, dang it.
I'm addicted to Wonder Trading. Sure you often get shit but I found a nice patch of grass where I grind levels and evolve all the garbage pokes to send back into the Wonder Trade web. Yesterday I was sending out all six of the starters and Rotoms, day before was Haunters, Machamps, and Gravelers. Today I'm leveling up some pokes for myself as well as some fossil pokes.
The GTS is pretty great, as long as you just deposit a poke instead of searching for one. Let the computer handle that shit unless you want to see countless people trying to get lvl 99 legendaries for a lvl 1 Magikarp.