Feast was considered "bad" because it featured too much of certain characters (Cersei, Jaime, Brienne), and too little of everything else, chiefly major plot events and the other characters. This is due to Martins debatable decision to split one story in two.
However,
Dance does a lot in terms of tying loose ends (the first half of the book being parallel to the events of
Feast ), and features a lot of new Lore (Essos, chiefly), surprising twists and turns and nasty cliffhanger endings for most every chapter, that keep you guessing and stir lots of emotions (good or bad) should you later discover that you were right
Still loving and hating characters in turn, but that's something i consider good about this series. People are still fallible and oftimes stupid, just like the real ones
Magic & the unnatural grows more common, but that's part of the plot, i think. Melisandre said as much.
So in a way,
Dance is what
Feast was not. For the most part, that's a good thing. (As in returning to a great variety of characters, instead of featuring just a few) Only sometimes it feels as if there's too much happening, but that might be just me.
Dance has to cover up all the action the very subtle & slow
Feast was missing, which sometimes feels a little deliberate, but is overally forgiveable.
(Come to think of it, this impression might just be rooted in the weird timescale, some chapters taking up months of the time of
Feast, but feeling like they "just happened" in
Dance, if you get my meaning)
Anyway, long story short, i'm devouring this book
(I'm 3/4 through)