Just finished the game. Loved every second of it. What a story! Thought it was better than the first one actually. Funny the comment about not caring because I found myself caring a lot about the outcome. That was a spectacular game.
Spoiler!
Loved the switch between Ellie and Abbie's storylines in Seattle. I felt extremely conflicted when Ellie decided to go back after Abbie in California. You went from hating Abbie to liking Abbie and liking Ellie to hating Ellie yet it still compelled me to want to see their stories through.
I would have liked one more day in Seattle and more to do in California.
I have been/(made the massive mistake of) reading some of the user reviews on Metacritic, especially the overly negative ones, and most just revolve around the death of Joel and not being able to play as Joel. Someone wrote they wanted to "quit gaming all together" because of the death of Joel! Lol. I loved that part of the game, it genuinely left me shocked, gutted, surprised and in denial, I was like surely Joel will come back at some point right!? I truly have not had those feelings playing a video game in my life. And it formed the entire premise of the story. Everyone loved Joel and Ellies relationship, and you wanted Ellie to avenge his death. It was a simple revenge story that eventually got twisted around so much that it forced you to care for, sometimes hate, and root for both Joel's Killer/Abbie and Ellie. Not an easy task in my opinion. I expected one thing and got something completely different. Which is not a lot most video games can say. There is so much to unpack in this game I need some time to think about it.
I also imagine a bunch of video game fan bois just didn't like a story that was centered around two strong female characters either coupled with some user reviews complaining about the director pushing a "trans"/"gay" agenda, it's starting to come pretty clear where some of these negative perspectives are rooted.
I can see how this game got 10/10 scores, because its ####ing awesome.