Hip but don't expect much
I had gotten mix reviews about The Standard Downtown. Seasoned travels seemed to think it was overrated and yet my hardcore hipster friends thought it was the only place worth wild to stay in LA. I've been to LA before but wanted the entirety of my trip to be focused on one central concept: lay by the pool and relax. So I needed a hotel with a reputation for its rooftop pool. In walks the main reason why I booked The Standard. In summation my experience was an even mix of what I was told by both set of friends. I'll walk you through what I thought (disclaimer I'm laid back and wear skinny jeans). 
We stayed a few days and paid the $199 rater per night. I thought the rate was fair for what you got- a standard, trendy room with a bed on a platform and a TV on a pole. The bathroom is all glass and totally embraces the voyeuristic novelty it so cleverly advertises. 
Now a lot of common complaints I found in previous reviews were: The bed on a platform and the glass bathroom. In my opinion, these complaints are completely unmerited. The bathroom's glass wall has a curtain you can cover and the there is no rocket science to the bed, you just step on and off it. The bed is low enough to the floor that anyone with walking impairments will have little to no difficulty getting on. It baffles me that people were complaining about these thing.
The staff was uber friendly and deserves a proper shout out. I never once felt they were snobby or unwelcoming. The woman at the front desk was completely lovely to me upon check in, the valet staff offered to give me directions multiple times, the stylist at the salon randomly complimented my hair and the waitresses at the in house diner were frank about what was good on the menu. I was even traveling with my dog and although he wasn't allowed on the roof top, staff was really nice about asking me to leave him in the room. 
The negative: 
-It really wasn't as sceney or trendy as I wanted it to be. In fact I thought the hotel was a little far off from the places I was going to- WeHo, Robertson Ave, Santa Monica. I really wouldn't have minded so much and of course it's my fault for booking so far off but driving through downtown LA around lunch hour can be a nightmare if you're a location challenged tourist mapquesting on your iPhone just to find your way out of the one way street maze while people throw themselves on your car even though you have the right away (personal trauma). Once I got on the highway, it was a good 15-20min drive to where I was going. This wasn't a deal breaker for me however. 
-The roof top bar was nothing to ride home about. I live in NYC and The Standard over here is the it place for a rooftop scene. LA's is sort of...bland. The waterbed pods are less menacing in person and surprisingly accessible to anyone. The security wasn't too nice and sort of laughed at my expense when I flashed my room key for entry (I really wanted them to know I was a guest apparently). That was really off putting for me because even if I was being overly anxious with my room card- c'mon I'm a tourist. Ignore it and move on. I'm sure theres a lot more scandal going on at the hotel than that. 
-No A/C unit in the room. This was a big deal breaker for me. I'm a light sleeper and any little noise wakes me up. I usually combat this with blasting the AC/Fan unit and letting the white noise drown out the horrors of people's footsteps racing down the hallway. But no such luck. And to be fair to the hotel- we were on the 4th floor so the noise was minimum but damn- you can hear every door slam on the hall at all hours of the day. Our neighbor just keep opening and closing the door constantly to the point of exhaustion. There is a thermostat in the room but it neither cooled the room or produced some glorious white noise. 
In the end, I was able to spend my mornings on the rooftop pool which was surprisingly empty but after a few hours I got bored and went about exploring LA (there isnt much in the hotel or area in way of entertainment).
The hotel belongs to the 20s/30s crowd who want to stay at a trend/sceney hotel at a decent rate. Which is fair. Let us have our land. If you're new to LA and need a starting point this is the place. I was def. one trip to old for this place but it was by no means unpleasant.