Thing is, there's a (large) camp of people who don't hate it for its politics whatsoever, we just understand the story (it'd be very hard not to) and think it's shit.
But because some people are overly emotionally attached to it, and can't possibly fathom how anyone could hate the thing they love, their defence often boils down to either "you just didn't understand it". It's embarrassing. We read deeper, more nuanced and thought-provoking books in high school at age 12. You (not you, the proverbial you) are very much welcome to enjoy it and I get why you might, just don't try and condescend others by pretending TLOU2 is the fucking Infinite Jest of video games or something.
Again, I'm not defending the people that hate it purely because Abby has muscles and it's "unrealistic" next to scrawny Ellie murdering hundreds and hundreds of men. That shit's retarded.
Agreed. The overarching premise of the story is a fair and reasonable one. Joel was no saint by his own admission, and it was hard to imagine that he could walk away from the events of Salt Lake City and not suffer the wrath of the surviving fireflies, but the game unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to its actual execution both in terms of attempting to take Ellie down the proverbial Heart of Darkness route Ala Spec Ops: The Line or in its lamentable attempt to try and humanize the character of Abby after her initial introduction to the player base was of her as the Villain brutally killing the very character you played in the first game.
Said it elsewhere. I think as far as stories go, it could have worked, but not in the way it was executed and in truth probably over 2 titles, with TLOU2 being solely about the aftereffects of Joel's decision on the Firefly Enclave at Salt Lake city and their eventual collapse, transition and amalgamation into the WLF in Seattle (with much cost along the way) as well as the breakdown of the truce between the WLF and the Scars as a means to really build up player understanding and empathy with Abby and her friends, and then the TLOU3 being where matters come to a head with Abby having found word of Joel's whereabouts.
As is, TLOU2 tries to cram way in too much into the games run time and miserably fails to convince in its blatant attempts to build sympathy for the devil when it comes to both Abby and her friends within that time, and unfortunately I can't help but cynically feel that the inclusion of certain modern progressive story line elements smack of being there simply as a means to shield the game from populist criticism because at the end of the day they just feel incongruous and out of place within the broader context of a world largely gone to shit and humanity barely getting by 25 years on. Just as the past isn't culturally now but with worst hygiene, a Post Apoc-future isn't culturally now but with zombies and scavenging. Still, when the biggest threat to your existence is likely getting bitten by an infected, and yet you decide it's a good idea to have your protagonists running around bare armed half the time I guess it's asking a bit too much to put a bit more effort into your world building.
I think the more suitable phrase would be misery porn. It's without a doubt one of the most viscerally violent games I've ever played, but video game players often revel in that stuff - here, the game revels in it and then takes a step back every half an hour to condemn it, as if we're somehow supposed to feel bad about it. The game's unrelentingly bleak tone hit a nerve with a lot of people; can't say I had the same issue, I'm all for excessively bleak if it's done well (The Road, Martyrs).
Honestly to my mind half the problem with the franchise overall is that it's fairly understated in its portrayal of a post-apoc world 25 years on. Certainly things wouldn't be 'The Road' levels of bad (because the environment in that was fucked) but the almost picture postcard western town vibe of Jackson and the farmstead (which honestly was so Hokey I figured it was going to actually turn out be a fever dream) just didn't land as well as the more militaristic approach of the WLF.