Not read the final chapters (last read was Marauders or Excalibur I think), but I have a love/hate relationship with the crossover so far.

It does thinks I like, it does things I hate.

Likes:
- Apocalypse actually gets to be a character with thoughts, feelings, motivations. Not somebody you'd actually be friends with, but somebody you can have a conversation with without him directly trying to murder you for *reasons*.
- I really liked the New Mutants issue with Cypher.
- The villains get to be a fleshed-out group with internal conflicts instead of just another faceless group of *name+power* that villains tend to be.
- I liked the downtime issues just before the duels actually started.
- I like the use of tarot cards for foreshadowing and story elements.

Dislikes:
- Many of the chapters were just put in random issues: X-Factor was mostly about other characters. Marauders at least tended to focus on Storm and Excalibur had Betsy usual as the focus character, but even there most of the time it was about the 9 swordsmen. I heard that Hellions at least had the team itself as focus point, but as far as I can tell, Hellions has very intersection with the rest of the titles anyway. For crossovers I prefer that each title still has the main focus on its own cast reacting to the overarching events of the crossover.
- The actual duels were very disappointing. Betsy vs Isca was also a few panels (it was already clear that she was going to lose, but the issue did very little with that loss as it immediately moved on to the next challenge.)
- I actually did like that the challenges were more than just swordfights, because it was an opportunity for a character like Cypher to have a role in the entire conflict, but execution so far hasn't wowed me exactly. Otherwise it would just be Gorgon vs. Isca in the end (best fighters on both sides as far as I can tell).
- And as much as I like Saturnyne taking center stage for once, I dislike her characterization so far as being obsessed with Brian.
- I do agree that spending half the crossover on gathering all these special swords and then the second half, none of the actual swords seem to matter (as said having not read to the end yet, but Betsy's defeat immediately after getting a newly created magic sword that nobody seemed to know what it actually could do, will probably have some effect at the end of the crossover (I think Excalibur is the last chapter before the actual ending issue? So that would be 1 sword that matters for the entire fight.)