My issue isn't lack of action and battles; GOT season 1 had very little - most of the battles happened off screen (e.g., we never saw Robb capture the Kingslayer). Further, the battle they have had in HOTD was dogshit, as discussed above.
But GOT, right from the start, had plot and intrigue across multiple story lines: 1) the north and the wall, and winter is coming, 2) the attack on Bran, 3) the incest in King's landing and the true heir, 4) the betrayal and killing of Ned, 5) Khalesi and the Dothraki, etc etc. Plus, there was all kinds of back story and mystery related to events that had happened in years past, that were only vaguely alluded to, like the Mad King and his death, the killing of Rahegar by Robert, the kidnap of Ned's sister, Jon's Snow's mother, etc etc. These things further fueled the mystery and intrigue surrounding the show and its characters.
People are naturally going to compare this show to GOT. HOTD is singularly focused on the succession story. By comparison, this would have taken up about 20 minutes of airtime in the first half season of GOT; it's over 240 minutes in HOTD thus far. In a relative sense, it's pretty boring.
I realize the showrunners are probably at the mercy of the source material. But it seems like there's much more back story that could be explored in this world that is not: 1) the doom of valryia (sp?) - it's the whole reason the Targs are even in Westeros in the first place - we get nothing on that; 2) We have whole houses from other kingdoms that are not in GOT that have gotten very little screen time: - we know very little about the Sea Snake's family or their past, not much at all about the Hightower's. These are very powerful houses that could yield some interesting storylines, but they are just absent. Could we not cut to old town or other places to break up the monotony a bit?