At the time of the launch of the Google Art Project last week, it was hard to get past the initial "wow" response. At first, it was indeed pretty unequivocally thrilling that the Internet superpower had applied its "street view" technology to allow Web surfers to meander through virtual versions of galleries within 17 of the world's top art institutions — including the Metropolitan, MoMA, and Frick Collection here in New York, and the Uffizi, Museo Reina Sofia, Tate Britain, Rijksmuseum, and others abroad.

Zooming in to admire the most minute details in over 1,000 digital reproductions of artworks — 17 of which were reproduced with the "gigapixel" process, yielding 7-billion-pixel versions of one work from the collection of each participating museum — is pretty cool, one has to admit. But over the past few days, critics have piped up about the project, pointing out flaws in the virtual mega-museum's design and praising it as an invaluable resource (sometimes in the same breath). ARTINFO has compiled a roundup of these voices, from the loudly incensed to the giddily ecstatic. 

– Roberta Smith writes in the Times that if you were already obsessed with art, then Google's new "mesmerizing, world-expanding" project has probably already "changed your life" with its ability to show paintings at a level of "intimacy usually granted only to the artist and his assistants, or conservators and preparators." But, of course, there are still "bugs and information gaps, and sometimes blurry, careering virtual tours" to contend with, and many major institutions omitted from the site. ("Expect mood swings," she writes. "This adventure is not without frustrations.") But while Smith says the online facsimiles will never be more than the "next best thing" when compared to the genuine article, she writes that "from where I sit Google’s Art Project looks like a bandwagon everyone should jump on."

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– On the Wall Street Journal's "Metropolis" blog, columnist Pia Catton commends the site as a kind of super-map, a resource for travelers who want to plan ahead and chart a direct route through a museum to a specific artwork. But she laments the fact that only certain rooms of participating museums are accessible online. "After moving through two museums I know well, I couldn't get past the guard at the MoMA lobby and I felt like a trapped mouse at the Met," she said. 

– According to the Economist, "it is a fine thing to be able to study a Rembrandt while in your underwear" and to be able to "listen to a curator talk about a portrait while you mercilessly zoom in on it." But a shortage of non-Western art and contemporary art — as well as participating institutions outside of Europe, New York, and D.C. — is a pitfall, as is the difficulty of moving through the halls at a human (non-zooming) pace. This publication's final word on the matter is that the project is a "bit like walking by a bakery, smelling the brownies and shoving your nose against the glass. It intensifies the hunger rather than quashing it."

– In the Guardian's "Observer" column, Tim Adams, while quite taken with the "efforts of never-evil Google to contain all the world on a 14-inch screen," cannot get over the loss of art-viewing as mystical "communion" between museum-goer and a physical "little framed force field." Adams sees the site as a more academic than emotional experience, and as a reductive one at that. Self-professed "database geek" Tim Williams, however, declares in another Guardian piece that he's pretty much in love with the Google Art Project, which he sees as an invaluable and awesome research tool.

– Google's just a "tech tease," according to BlackBook magazine, which bemoans the fact that the site will never be complete, as museums will never own all the rights to reproduce the art in their collections and will always still want to attract visitors to their non-virtual hallowed halls. 

– In the Atlantic, Google Art Project is thanked "for saving us all from pretentious museum buffs worldwide" who crow that you can't understand a work until you see it firsthand. But then, author Eliza Murphey goes on to say that Google Art Project's version of van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles," wasn't as emotionally moving online as it was, as a physical artwork, in Amsterdam. So maybe the museum snobs aren't so crazy, after all?

– The Telegraph is very frustrated with Google's new tech art offering — specifically with the "street view" photography, which is reminiscent of the "handheld footage favoured in horror movies such as 'The Blair Witch Project.'" Plus, Alastair Sooke is upset that the cherry-picking of artworks and institutions on offer, which he thinks runs counter to the democratic nature of the site.

– The Los Angeles Times reports that Google is taking a "distinctly Old World view of art" and, of course, bemoans the fact that not a single California art institution is taking part in the project.

– Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post thinks "museums are terrible" because they are filled with stampeding "portly men" with flash cameras, as well as other gag-worthy things like landscape paintings, so she is wholeheartedly enamored of the virtual project. "The only thing we don't like about visiting museums is visiting museums," she said. "So I'm in favor." Except she's a little bummed there's no online museum gift shop.