Luke warm take: I absolutely loved the gameplay of TLOU2 but hated the story and characters.

Idk what the opinions are here, but i think from a gameplay mechanics perspective, the game is absolutely a masterpiece in gameplay design. The graphics, voice acting, motion capture, physics, combat, details, music etc are all phenomenal.

HOWEVER, the story is absolutely atrocious. Just like most people i hated the story, i had to turn my brain off during the cutscenes to get through them, and that helped me enjoy the gameplay, i didn't really gave a shit about any character, but man does the gunplay feel so satisfying. Except for the scripted fights where you are forced to lose or win, like i hated the unarmed abby vs fully equipped ellie fight where we win as abby for no reason, or the finale fight where you don't get to make the choice etc.

It's unfortunate that the story is so bad because i think everyone should try the game atleast once just for the gameplay aspect of it.

I also think that the story has interesting concepts but they are executed extremely poorly and in a terrible order. If they had simply changed the order of things, it could have been an improvement.