Honestly, I'm among those who feel that the Pain arc is overhyped. I feel the War arc does everything the Pain arc did, better. Pain/Nagato has worse writing than Obito/Madara. The action and art in the War arc are generally better than the Pain arc.
I will say that the Pain arc had moments of higher tension, whereas, in the War arc, there were "end of the world" moments thwarted every 3-5 chapters, so the War arc tended to lack the same sense of danger. However, I believe the villains were much more interesting in the War arc. The parallels between Naruto/Sasuke and Obito/Madara made the ideological conflicts much more impactful, whereas Nagato's "connection" to Naruto through Jiraiya (and subsequent ideological 180) felt more contrived. Say what you will about Obito's aggravating Rin flashbacks, at least it makes more sense than Nagato being drastically impacted by Jiraiya's book. IMO, the parallels drawn between Naruto and Nagato through that contrived book are just a watered-down version of the Naruto/Obito connection.