I won't deny that Shadow of Rome was fun. Hacking people to bits was fun. Throwing stuff into the crowd was fun. But those stealth missions were just ok.
God of War 1 was a lot of fun, and it didn't have those stealth missions. I didn't mind the Hades segments, and that took up less of the total play time than the stealth segments in SoR.
So GoW1 is better than Shadow of Rome.