Minor spoilers aread
Well, I did finish watching the entire first season. Overall, I think they do a good job with it, although they do stray very far from the books.
Good points:
The direction and visuals are excellent at times. They often go way beyond what was in the book, but that works well. Very surreal at times.
The shows add a lot of dimensions to characters that weren't that weren't (pun intended) fleshed out in the book, particularly Laura and Mad Sweeney.
Some of the acting--particularly Emily Browning, Ian McShane, Pablo Schreiber and Kristen Choneweth--is very good.
The device of starting each episode with a story of how a particular god came to America is actually a nice original touch, that, in some cases, becomes most of entire entire episode.
The many ways they update the book to focus on the battles of the gods being between the old ones of the old world and the new ones representing the gods of technology.
Crispin Glover. A welcome return to the screen for this veteran portrayer of psychos and dweebs.
Bad points:
Ricky Whittle as Shadow. Sorry, but to me he's like Dwayne Johnson without any personality. His acting is wooden, and his few scenes beyond looking around with a "WFT is happening" expression aren't convincing. He's the weakest part of the show.
Diversion from the main plot: If you're a purist, you probably won't like a lot of the embellishments the showunners have added to the story, I actually think most of them are pretty good.
The whole Bilquis subplot. Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall she had maybe one scene in the book, but they keep creating more and more backstory, which really mainly seems designed to include sex scenes. Unless they're going to give her a huge role in season two, I wish they'd drop her.