Oh, it's a steaming pile all right, a poorly written and plotted excuse to fling as many 80s nerd references around as possible. Ooh, let's reverse-engineer a solipsistic world in which everyone is obsessed with the exact things I used to be obsessed with!
However, if you are exactly as old and nerdy as I am, and played those early bizarre D&D modules, and Joust in the arcade, and Zork on a TRS-80 from Radio Shack, etc. etc., then Ready Player One simply skips past all your critical reading into the pleasure centers of your brain. For its audience, it's incredibly effective. And no-one else should read it, ever.
[shakes fist at cloud]