Yeah, I'm not big into animated series for kids, but this one caught my interest mainly because unlike previous Transformers series, its main purpose didn't seem to be peddling toys, as it was written by the same guys who did the 2009 Star Trek film (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman). Now, Orci and Kurtzman were also the writers behind the first 2 Transformers films, but as this show can tell a better story in 3 minutes than those films did in over 4 hours, I'm thinking that their writing was likely neutered more than a little by Mr. Bay.

If you want your kids to watch a decent animated series that will still give you some easy ideas on what to get them for Xmas, you could do worse than this show.

One clue that this show isn't just trying to act like one long commercial for toys: the number of characters in the show. The protagonists (Team Prime) have the enormous number of *6* members in it, and number 6 was introduced late into the show's second season, some 40+ episodes in, and he was introduced in a relatively logical manner. Apparently, Hasbro didn't even initially confirm that there would be a toy line associated with the show. If true, it's nice to see a toy company that actually tries to entertain its audience before selling them the associated swag.

EDIT: It actually looks like Hasbro has two faces. One face is capable of the above, while the other still thinks only about merchandising, as this story from IGN seems to demonstrate:

Hasbro CEO talks about Transformers 4 film, says it will feature new robot cast because the toys for the last film didn't sell so well.