Yeah, I had that problem with it too. No Jon, no Bran, no Dany, no Tyrian... I think it really suffers from being only half the book. I understand why GRRM split it the way he did, but I'm not convinced it was the right decision. I'll be interested to see if I like it better in retrospect, when "Dance with Dragons" comes out.

However, it did have one of the best "oh HELL YEAH" moments in all the books at the end, so it left a better taste in my mouth than it might have otherwise. (I won't say what here, since it's a major spoiler and I don't want to wreck it for anyone else who might read the series, but I bet you can guess what it was.)