He mosly contrasts Sword Art Online with Accel World for the article, and finds SAO lacking:

Make no mistake: Accel World is a pretty serious game. There are stakes, and you can be kicked out of the game permanently. But the show never forgets that it’s about game. That, for me, is more than enough.

In contrast, Sword Art Online is about a guy playing a MMORPG, which stops being a game (which people play for fun, “fun” being the operative word here) and becomes a struggle for survival instead.

Stakes in Accel World, for a little reveal, stem from the real-life powers that players gain, so they are embedded into the real world by design. And as he said, they are quite serious, although I haven't yet seen anyone to commit a murder using Accelerated World, or gain political power. Seems like an inevitable development, however.

Note how Schneider uses his gamer positionality to his advantage:

I also love how the game empowers Haruyuki to become a better person – far too much ink has been spilled on video games negatively influencing people’s lives!

It is outside the contrast with SAO, of course: it may still enable the same development in the latter episodes. I'm just pointing out how gamer wants to perceive anime and express it in his blogging narrative.

In addition, a tidbit:

The comparison is not as farfetched as it sounds. Sword Art Online and Accel World share the same author, Reki Kawahara, and they’re both about virtual-reality MMOs.

UPDATE: J.P. tweets: "sword art online would be really awesome if it were about the outside world. instead, it's mindbogglingly fuckin' stupid".