I will try to review this as a standalone drama first of all. (Rant about adaptation at the end)
The story line is nothing that we haven't seen before . There are some interesting developing here and there but it is kind of your typical weak to strong protagonist fighting against evil. The romantic develop between the character was good especially between Lin Dong and Ying Huan Huan. It would good to see how everything plays out in the second part (I wish they didn't split it up).
All the actor were serviceable and all the main leads did a good enough job. Sometime the dubbing is very noticeable but apart from that there are no major complaints.
One thing i noticed was the productions put a lot of effort into the set production. You can tell they probably spent a lot of money on set pieces and they tried to build a fairly realistic world. Of course there was still a fair amount of CGI.
The beginning of the show was very slow and I really struggled. However I still continued and I feel that the second half of the series is a better than the first half, the second half things were actually happening. Another thing I felt that was off through the series was the editing, i feel that sometime story arc seems to be rush or there is no proper conclusion.
Overall this was a very average drama.

Here is my rant about this being an adaption of the novel. Being someone who has read the book, I believe this is a failure of an adaptation. The book is very much centered around Lin Dong and I know this is a drama so they have to change things but the most important aspects should at least be kept but the drama does away with all of this. I personally believe that what make people root for Lin Dong was his drive and willpower to improve himself and get his revenge but the drama basically ignores this. For the most part of the series he either has character A or B helping Lin Dong and they have to encourage all the way. If you are a like the novel I do not believe many of you will like the drama so I will recommend that you do not think of this as an adaption but just a standalone drama that has similar character names and settings.