I've just finished the second episode.
Production quality is just... wow. They've clearly taken heed of the criticisms of previous seasons. It's not perfect, but considering that they're supposedly working with 1/5th of the budget of Rings of Power, they're doing a very good job here.
The writing still seems hit & miss. And for me the first two episodes felt clumsy in places. But the main purpose of these episodes seems to have been to finish/skip/postpone the remaining content from the third WoT book, so that might explain some of the issues.
Matt is so much truer to his book character this season. And I love what they've done with Gaebril compared to his book counterpart. I'm not sold on Galad & Gawyn though. And Egwene and Nynaeve continue to be quite irritating.
The main takeaway is that, so far at least, this is still more of a retelling than an adaptation. It's inspired by Robert Jordan's books, rather than adapting them directly. I think it's a good fantasy show in its own right & one of the better ones from recent years. But it's difficult not to feel irritated by the sweeping changes if you're familiar with the source material. On the other hand, changes were inevitable given the scale and scope of the books. And there are rumours about plans for ending the show at season 4 or 5, as well as the original planned 8.