I'm one of those fans... I've only seen the raw right now and it was from youtube at that. For a
live action TV it did its job quite well (storywise) in adapting the manga storyline.
Naturally those who hate cosplay or those who worship good cosplay will HATE it. The transition from paper to reality is just not that easy. Add to the fact that most people are probably seeing their first LA adaptation and the 2D crowd would definitely be screaming
fail.
You don't have to be a saint to watch it, you just have to have tolerance for the idea of real actors and production limits. It has flaws but these should not have been enough to label it as a pointless and ridiculous endeavor for negima (the previous 2 anime didn't reallys set the bar high anyway)
Some mistakes have been made (IMO Ku Fei's hair
and the wooden acting by some) but these can still change as the show progress. Some ideas i think were worthy of praise was how they showed 3-A's class roster in the ED and have chamo as a 2-D incarnation (saving us less cheese).
PS
As i said there are cringe moments in the episode when things do look cheesy and I expect a whole lot more such moments but I actually think its fun to see them try this live approach.