I discovered MAL back when I didn't have much of an interest in anime and manga. I remember being confused after seeing the top lists since they were full of names I had never seen before. Over the years, I've kept these lists in my mind as a best-of when it comes to each medium, but after reading this holy shit have I been proven wrong (#14 overall and #1 manhwa at the time of writing this). I started going through Solo Leveling because its Korean origin intrigued me, but also because I saw it mentioned on a forum as an example of manga drawn in color.
Art wise it hardly disappoints, it starts off great and it only get better as it goes on. The fight scenes in particular are impressive, they ended up being what kept me reading for the most part even though they are incredibly predictable due to story reasons. All other aspects aren't as grand however, which diminished my overall enjoyment.
The story drops the ball almost instantly by making the protagonist the only character who is able to become stronger through a system of quests that he gains access to after a near-death experience in a dungeon (the "why" hasn't been explained yet). There just isn't much that can happen after this, obviously he's going to grind it out, it also doesn't help that these quests give him insane rewards. You can safely throw out all the usual buzzwords at this webtoon and they would all fit: wish fulfillment, derivative, power fantasy etc. It's somewhat salvaged in some of the later chapters, but I just can't get over how boring the story is for most of its length.
The characters aren't much better either. The only one who is relevant for an extended period of time is the MC, everyone else is quickly forgotten after they've served their purpose. The MC himself, is kind of... shallow, I guess? You only have to read chapter 0 to realize that there's nothing super interesting about him. There is an attempt made at giving him a good motive for doing what he does, his mother's condition, but that isn't mentioned much apart from the beginning and late chapters of the webtoon.
I probably would have enjoyed Solo Leveling quite a bit more in my early teens when I was still addicted to Metin 2 and loved to self-insert, but as it stands I can't give this that high of a score, and I definitely don't agree with the many people claiming this webtoon to be a masterpiece or to have a really unique story. I just don't see it.