Spoilers ahead! I can see how this game is divisive. Overall I enjoyed the game - The graphics and world were beautiful and some of the physics mechanics (e.g. rope) was very impressive technically. Enemy A.I. wasn’t great and looting could’ve been more rewarding but those are my only major quarms with the gameplay.
I’ll quickly mention I’ve seen a lot of people say this game is too political and the characters are too diverse and it feels abit preachy. I can’t say I agree with this at all and was very surprised and puzzled when I heard this from players. I can honestly say that I never felt like it was too much or over-bearing in the slightest while playing.
Now the story.... Urghhhh - Okay, so imo the story was good*. I think it was an interesting direction to take the story after the ending of the first game. They could’ve gone with something nice and simple but hell no we got something else entirely, and in someways I have to applaud that. I actually ended up really liking Abby and her arc, which is mad for a character that kills a fan-favourite mere hours into the game. NaughtyDog made her likeable and gave her an interesting story and background. Many of her ‘scenes’ were super cool and cinematic. I liked how Ellie and Abby’s storylines converged and I felt real anticipation for these characters to meet once I was emotionally attached to them both. I also found the games’ ending oddly satisfying in a deeply depressing and solemn way. This is the end of the world and there doesn’t have to be a happy ending.
*but damn, it definitely could have been better executed. By the end I liked Abby way more than Ellie, which is a bizarre way for NaughtyDog to leave me when the story is about Ellie and the (assumed) sequel will presumably be centered around her and not have Abby or Lev in (characters which we spent half the game with). Ellie doesn’t really develop in the game and her decisions (especially towards the end) are arguably out of character and questionable. I personally feel like they focussed way too much on Abby and not enough on Ellie. Ellie’s story was pretty basic and straight-forward, whereas Abby got more exciting missions, more interesting side-characters and relationships, etc.. I get that NaughtyDog want us to understand that perspective exists, and yeah they successfully got me to sympathise with Abby - but they forgot about Ellie and I’m sure this has left most people feeling deeply unsatisfied with how it panned out. No question, NaughtyDog have got balls and they took a real risk with this one... we’ll see if it pays off if/when Last of Us 3 comes along.