1) "MC is not in control of the situation". This comment is correct. This novel is not one of those where the MC has everything and everyone dancing on the palm of his hand whilst he goes around destroying and owning everyone methodically. In fact, novels with those said storylines are the norm rather than the exception. SR has a rather refreshing take in which anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and starts blowing up left right center. Expect the unexpected. Expect to get betrayed. Expect weird motivations from someone who you thought was the villian but turned out to be not so bad after all.

I personally finds this more enjoyable as a read since it is more realistic than the cliche of MC is good, everyone else is a ret*rd and bad. The feeling of the MC getting swept up in the grand scheme of things and having to struggle really hard to get through makes it a really good story. It is kind of satisfying as well.

2) "No satisfaction from killing his enemies since he is not the one doing it." This comment is also correct. Similar to my comment for (1), I personally find it odd that in other stories, the villian will just send someone borderline stronger than the MC and the MC will either powerup due to rare skill, treasure, etc and managed to defeat the villian in a satisfying way. MC in SR will not be able to do that, at least for the first 600 odd chapters. He will still kill his enemies through his machinations of various external strengths, allies, etc. To me, this is a plus point and not a minus one.

3) "The MC continues to act ret*rded at the start and the excuse given is lacklustre". This I do not agree.

MC's motivation is simple. He wants to just train in peace until age 17 before he GTFO. He wants nothing to do with the Ling family. However, he still feels slightly obligated. One reviewer took issue with that and said there is no need for the MC to feel so since he don't owe the Ling family anything. Although that is correct, but MC feels morally obligated as a human being. Part of his struggles deal with him as a person. His sealed memories contain personalities which made him dark, calculative, crazy, selfish, etc. His personality after losing his memories (post 10 yo) is one which is kind and gentle. The conflict in his personality can be seen throughout the entire story. I think the author has dealt with it in a good and compelling manner.

MC's stand is simply this. Even though I don't really like them and don't owe them anything, I feel kind of odd if I do nothing and see them getting slaughtered. Part of it was also because of how the Elder Ling Sister was so nice to him.

4) "Despite the same author, this MC is nothing like the dark, gory, anti-hero MC like in the other novels". This comment is partially true and partially false.

Before 10, that was exactly what the MC was like. After 10, his personality was one of kind and gentleness, kind of weak. This is dealt with more than once after the beginning of the story. As stated in (3), that is the ongoing tension with his past mysterious identity and the current him.

5) "Aside from the main female lead, pretty much everyone else is a bit*h and egoistic tsundere who are just too proudy of their looks." Very interesting comment I would. And it is not entirely false.

The first girl he met on the snow mountain was quite nice. Although she would probably be relegated as a side character.

The Tang girl she met at the artificer guild is kind of like that. Although she is just a spoilt brat who is proud because of her artificing skills more so than her looks.

That Xie girl is simply just cold... and probably emotionless. She is not really proud of her looks anyway. She also has her own issues.

That Song girl really falls under the tsundere category. But that is only for the initial bit. After a while, the interaction between the two of them is quite cute I would think.

The Xue girl is quite a decent girl from the start.

So all in all, you have some nice girls... although most of them are the "arrogant, narcissistic, egoistic b*tch", there is a decent spread and spectrum of girls. MC dont even give a sh*t most of the time anyway.

1. Villains in this novel are just plain bad. And not in the 'evil bad' kind of a way. Do you know those 'uuuh, he made my son cry once, I must cripple the bastard!' a**holes? Or those 'uuuh his growth is some awesome derp berp I can't allow him to grow let's go massacre his entire family for no reason uuh' a**holes? Yup, there you go, those are your villains. From what I remember, I've only read up to post-city-war parts, and there was no single decent villain anywhere to be found.
2. It's standard xianxia while trying to be something more. As I said before, MC tends to lose from time to time (at least more than in your even more generic xianxias), but, well... his plot armor is still so thick even Juggernaut would have trouble piercing those walls. You know the type? Randomly walks into a shabby shop in the middle of nowhere, meets an old, grumpy guy who turns out to be holier-than-thou OP bastard that helps him. Oh, what is this? Bunch of strong factions are attacking us? Why oh my, let me just wake up this ancient demon that just so happens to be right in the sect's grounds and have him save us! How so not lucky and totally coincidental! MC is just far too talented in everything (except talking to women), that even when he's threatened and loses, my reaction was usually 'meh'.
3. Constant need to keep adding 'realms'. You know, the standard xianxia shit. MC is progressing decently with his cultivation and is about to overtake the peers around him and bop, somebody pops out of butt-sh*t nowhere and introduces the whole new realm to him. This extends to sects as well, and it just never stops. From what I remember, they're separated into Copper, Silver and Gold or some sh*t levels, and it just never stops going up and up.
4. Every single adult (that's against MC at least) in this novel doesn't have EQ. They get so easily pissed off by MC I haven't a bu*t of a clue as to how they didn't die of a heart attack beforehand. For an example; MC's chick one day gets stolen by some granny, MC swears to himself he'll kill that granny, the two meet way later and MC says sh*t like "hoho granny I'm gonna kill you you b*tch" and the granny loses her shit. We're talking about a woman that's lived for dozens of years, getting pissed off by tantrum-throwing child. Oh. my. god.

Overall, Spirit Realm isn't the worse novel of the bunch, but it's just far too inconsistent with what it wants to be. Couple that with your plot-thickens armored MC, substandard villains and pointless side characters, and you've got yourself sub-par xianxia.

The main character is thought dead and is trapped in another world, so his enemies have begun to move against his friends and fiancee. When he returns, he finds out that this happened. Of course, he's angry, so you'd think he'd rush over there and help his friends and fiancee out, right? Nope, he takes a detour and reminisces about the past, just so that the author can introduce a new plot point which, of course, could have easily been done AFTER he saved his friends and family.

Second one is where he is in possession of POWERFUL tools and is in the midst of a civil war between one side he says he will help and the other side which is basically his enemies. Both sides don't really care about him, so there's no real danger there. The side he wants to help is so because of a woman he thinks of as an elder sister. When the fighting starts, she's the first to be injured, and guess what the MC does when everything beings. NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. He fricken waits and waits and waits until some indeterminate time the author decides was proper and then launches his OP tools. Nothing was given to suggest that this was a good idea.