Complaining about the plot does seem like complaining about the font in a copy of War and Peace. Avatar is a combination of world-building and world-rendering on a scale never before seen.
I plan to see the film tomorrow, but the video game does give credit to the world-building aspect. I was quite ambivalent about the key materiel being called unobtainium at first, but after reading a backstory article, it seems quite appropriate. Perhaps the movie itself is just part of it, but overall he seems to have brought forth a detailed universe, even if it is only glossed over in the movie.
