Characters: 8 Inevitably three things happen when you have a large cast: you will always find a character or two that you can relate to or just plain like (for me it's Hinata, I can sympathize with her situation, plus she's absolutely adorable), you will find characters that you can't stand (such as Ino, and also in my case Shikamaru), you will always find a character that will disappoint you (OMFG! Kabuto is a bad guy? He was so cool!).
Entertaining: 10 My parents have taken a liking to anime (miracle of miracles) and when I showed them my entire collection of Naruto, we went through the entire 100+ episodes over Xmas break (this was last year). Even then, they were begging for more. Nothing, and I mean nothing has made them want to see the next episode more than Naruto. Not only that but you get so captivated in it it doesn't seem like 23 minutes has passed.
Music: 9 Top notch music, even some of the filler intros and outtros aren't bad. The background music fills your ears with songs that match the mood or situation very well. Being a music fan, I'd say that if there was no music in Naruto, the impact of the show would be halfed.
Story: 6 Let's face it, at this point there is no story. But the way each situation and backstory is told in each arc well makes up for it. Even the bad guys that end up being defeated or destroyed have some type of past that makes you look at them in a different light at least once. Because of this, I don't think anyone really notices there's no story going on here.
Art : 6 Let's face this one too, anime art has been better, much better. I own anime that has better art, like Last Exile, or even AstroBoy [2003]. Even the same style of art in Fullmetal Alchemist is drawn better. But I love it just the same. It's simplistic, but can still convey the right emotion. The one thing I don't get is how they could screw up so bad in aligning the eyes in that one episode around 26 or 27. If you've noticed, the battle animation is done by computer and the character models lack some of the details in the hand drawn ones, but makes up for it with the much more fluid movement and impact of the battles.
Overall: 8.5 It's a must see in my book, but the Story and Art has brought it down a notch or two. I say watch the first two seasons. If you can't find something you like in it, then I'll give you double your money back.