I've never been more conflicted on scoring a K-drama series. My watching partner (aka wife) and I are also divided on this score, which is very unusual. In the end, I had to look at how we'd scored other series and let my personal tastes have more of an influence than usual.

[Note: Using MDL spellings for names rather than Netflix's. Apologies for throwing in many Japanese manga/anime terms, but I can't find the Korean equivalents relevant to manhwa.]

Good:
Great cast and acting, good story overall, decent VFX and production values, some really great, memorable characters, a very fun watch, a lot of action.

I loved that the core team is an age-diverse group of unique characters with good motivations and backstories. They reveal much more about themselves as the story progresses. I actually could have used a lot more of just them casually interacting in the noodle shop, teasing each other, training, whatever.

Not-so-good:
A hero who's a bit too prone to completely falling apart, a few underdeveloped or weak supporting characters, some side stories that aren't as interesting as others, the overall concept has a lot of holes and inconsistencies, the ending and resolution are very weak and dragged out, some very inconsistent depictions of main characters, some missed opportunities.

(Light spoiler, but kind of funny: It really seems at one point that the MC, So Moon [Cho Byeong Kyu] is trying to exploit a sick child for BTS tickets. Dude. No.)

Do Ha-Na's (Kim Se Jeong) temperament is a bit all over the place. Her backstory is never fully realized, but plays a big part in the main plot. She is a great character (classic tsundere) and Kim Se Jeong is great. The script lets her down a bit. Her story could have been left open for a possible Season 2, but there is a lot of teasing and partial reveals that don't work well enough to support her behavior.

In the supporting cast, Kim Jung Young (Choi Yoon Young) has a key role, but her character is disappointingly bland and ineffective, even compared to many much more minor characters. She's so poorly depicted, I often felt bad for Choi Yoon Young for having to go through the motions of playing the role.

Similarly So Moon's friends feel like they were copied and pasted from a show with a total different tone. This makes some of what happens to them rather disturbing. It's also a bit weird that Im Joo Yeon (Lee Ji Won) is clearly the only actual teenager playing a student, and is surrounded by actors almost twice her age. It's common to have actors play many ages, but throwing someone so conspicuously young into the cast makes the difference very noticeable.

Normally, these issues would have been enough for me to score Uncanny Counter in the 7.0–7.5 range.

But… This one has specific appeal for me:
Uncanny Counter has a plot and premise very similar to many popular Shonen manga and anime (as well as manhwa influenced by those, including the original UC webtoon). It should be very familiar to fans of Bleach, Rin-ne, Yu Yu Hakusho, Soul Eater, and dozens of other "empowered people have to fight corrupted souls/spirits and send them to an afterlife dimension" titles. It takes a lot of cues from these, and the hero arc is similar to almost all of them. There are also quite a few Matrix references, even what appeared to be some Wes Anderson visual references.

So, basically, the roots of this drama are all things I love and was happy to see in this show.

At this point, how I feel about Season One may change after viewing Season 2, coming in 2022. If it offers better story resolution, a tighter script, and giving some characters the attention they deserve, I'd keep Season 1 at 8.0. If many of the first season faults carry over into the next, it may be downgraded to a 7.5.