Not the worst thing I've ever seen, but not immensely engaging either.
After the first episode, I should know who most of the key players in this world are, what they want, and what they're willing to do to get it. Ideally I'd also know their names, but that was never easy to remember in GoT anyway, so I'll give that a pass.
Alas, I barely know (or care) who anybody is in the show at this stage.
Part of what made the first episode of GoT so effective was that -- while everyone was inhabiting a pretty dark and brutal world -- there was a clear hero and protagonist to root for named Ned Star. Our understanding of the world was filtered through his perspective, and he was a genuinely respectable man. He was honest, carried himself with dignity, he was smart and brave. He had integrity and stood up for what he thought was right.
That's important, because it made me care about Ned and his family, and the fact that I cared meant that it was heart-wrenching to see how quickly he met his unjust fate.
Since I liked Ned, I cared about him. Since I cared about him, I was invested in what was happening in the story very quickly. When he was executed, I felt pangs of injustice and wanted to know what would happen to his family and how his allies would react.
House of the Dragon gives me another show where all the characters seem to be various shades of muddled gray, down to just awful people who aren't really worth rooting for.
So that's not nearly as compelling. Why do I care what happens to people I don't really like?
The original GoT spent a lot of time slowly revealing character's hidden agendas and secret motivations. Even in that first episode, Ned Stark was largely destroyed by people he didn't understand how to fight because they weren't coming at him with swords or even coming straight "at" him at all.
That was interesting and intriguing.
This show is much more overt. Characters' motivations seem to be pretty obvious.
CONCLUSION:
I didn't hate it, but I'm not super invested in it either.