I'm hard to please when it comes to action scenes, and I'm picky when it comes to magic. So many writers do action in a way that bores me and magic in a way that makes me roll my eyes. Not Sanderson. The action parts were some of the best parts of the book. I'd get genuinely excited reading them. Great stuff. And the magic in this book is grade A, top-notch, "rule-bound" magic, just the way I like it.

But here's the problem: that's all we have; Great action scenes and a fantastic magic system.
-The dialog is awkward. It's not for lack of simplicity (the book has the vocabulary of a YA novel). But everybody seems to have an extra thing to two to say to the air or the world or themselves when they're talking to somebody else. "No, I don't want a glass of water...I don't want much of anything but revenge these days." Ok, dude... I was just offering you some water.
-While some tasks are appropriately difficult, others are far too easy and simply need to be thought of before attempting. "We've tried breaking in here a dozen times and always get stopped...o I went to this much more important place and took out all the wimpy guards there."
-The pacing drags. So many writers are guilty of this, so I'm hesitant to even mention it, but it's still a problem.
-Some of the cliches are too silly to ignore.

All that said, it was an enjoyable read. It probably lies somewhere around 3.5 stars for me, but I'm bumping it up to 4 because of all the fun the magic system was capable of and succeeded in providing. And that action... this would make a fun a movie.