Okay what?! I don't understand ANY of the bad reviews here. Maybe you just have to start with TOME before you've seen TTA? I just watched this first episode the other day, and I thought it was AMAZING. The animation is clean and entertaining, and nicely stylized. The voice acting is very realistic and true to life (Well sometimes :P). The story, while slightly aimless, does have an overarching goal and well defined bad guys. And the best part is it has that serious badass style that I forgot about since I was a kid. It was a great feeling and it brings back a lot of pleasant nostalgia to see it done with the quality of an adult. Also, I love the characters. I mean, Alpha and FlameGirl are a tad generic... but what show doesn't have those characters? They're more of a springboard and motivation for the other characters anyway. Kirb of course is the scrappy clutz-- the comic relief if you will (A great improvement to his character since at least the first few episodes of TTA). Plus it's cool to see the same Kirb I saw in Brawl Taunts. Nylocke is AWESOME. I love his charming Britishness (and the fact that he's not a weeaboo), and his outbursts. And GC... I don't know about GC... He's one of the better characters, but I can't figure out why. Maybe it's just that no-nonsense attitude. Maybe he's just the anti-comic-relief, for when the goofy levels outstay their welcome. Regardless, he's pretty cool. I love that Blake and Martin are voice actors. They're both great.
There's nothing wrong with the colors or the gradients. The faces and mouths look just fine. People are calling it lazy... I've seen worse from professionally released cartoons. The tweens are well done so that I didn't even notice it for a long time. And by the way, a lot of the animations are meant to look like a video game, where there is a limited selection of movement and poses. I believe that's the idea of what's going on here. It fits to me and it looks just fine.
My conclusion: TOME is amazing, and I am now a huge fan... Everyone else seems to have some kind of grudge against this for some reason.