Most of the Salvatore books are serious. While I do enjoy the stories, my qualms about them are mainly two things: drow society and god characters.
Personally, I think D&D drow suck. Unrealistic society that would never work as described. Because they aren't believable, they aren't threatening. They are evil and bad only because it is stated that they are. And the second problem is god characters. Meet the world's most dwarven dwarf, the strongest barbarian, best swordsman, best thief, and the best archer. The problem with god characters, of course, is that you need to throw them up against gods to have a fair fight. And so we get the laughable ultimate assassin and the most god character of all, Jarlaxle, who no matter what, will benefit from every situation.
That being said, much like Eddings, I enjoy reading the stories, even if they do have problems
