To cut a long story short:

The movie is absolutely fantastic. I think Peter Jackson did his best to transform a relatively simple story for younger kids into a movie which is comparable to the Lord of the Rings movies. Of course, the Hobbit plot has certain limitations that can’t be overcome. It does not have and, in fact, will never have that magnitude and solemnity of the Lord of the Rings. I think, then, a lot of disappointment expressed in some reviews come from a serious misunderstanding of what is being reviewed: the movie or the plot (which after all is quite faithful to the book). The result is that, since the plot of the Hobbit will never be as good, as complex as the one in LOTR, some people were disenchanted. But if you look at the movie itself, the Hobbit defends itself well and indeed is as good as Fellowship of the Ring.

Now some details:

I fundamentally disagree with the opinions that the movie is stretched and that the pace is too slow. Well, I believe the pace is just right. I hate to say that but I wish LOTR movies had this kind of pace and space for character exposition (fortunately the extended edition of LOTR solves this problem). As a result, the scenes in Hobbiton are actually my favorites, being full of funny dialogues and situations.
I was afraid there will be a lot of cheesy humorous scenes, but actually there few and far between. I found more in LOTR! I was afraid that the characters will be really cartoony. I did not find them more cartoony than some in LOTR (remember cave trolls in Fellowship?). Ok, maybe the Goblin king could have been done better, but all the other characters, including Azog, were done extremely well!
And this actually brings us the problem of idealizing LOTR I found in some reviews – people tend to forget that the things that they are criticizing in the Hobbit were actually in LOTR movies as well.

Highlights:

There are many. Although I did not like the prologue itself really (because there was too much talking by Bilbo and we did not see the Smaug although it would seem natural to show it to the audience - I know Peter did not want it for obvious reasons), I loved the whole Hobbiton sequence.
I loved Riddles in the Dark – this one really is a killer.
I loved Stone Giants battle – utterly spectacular
I loved all the scenes with Azog – for me this character is almost as scary as Black Riders.
I loved the scenes with Warg scouts and Eagles.

Conclusions:

All in all, a great movie. Surely, a couple of things could have been done better, but given the limitations of the plot, Peter did a great job.

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