I think the execution is perfect.
The game is telling a story about flawed people including the MC and the BS. That's why I love the game so much. For people wanting a simple revenge story with cardboard cutout villains, this is not that story.
The BS has tremendous depth, the MC has depth, his friends have depth. They are not 2-Dimentional characters. The concept that a bully or bullies are just straight forward bad people is mostly not true, they have their reasons for acting this way.
(They almost always have their own past abuses, insecurities, bullying etc.)
The game does a wonderful job of exploring the people behind the bullies. Not just a nameless bad guy that you cannot feel bad about getting full on revenge. They are normal people with their own motivation and feelings too.
That does not mean the BS is angels, they have done and continues to do the most horrible things imaginable. The MC is also not an angel, and I think that is part of the theme of the game (That people don't seem to get) That in the process of exacting revenge, you can become the monster instead.
, but the game hammers home the theme that the MC is wrong for not letting things go
But is that not, right??
It's not the idea of not letting things go, but look at what the MC and his friends have become.
1) Planning on leaking a photo of a girl having sex.
2) Leaking a photo of one of the girls giving a BJ.
3) Blackmailing a girl with a video.
4) Forcing the girl into degrading sexual acts with said video.
5) Sexually assaulting one of the girls.
The MC and his friends are slowly turning into the very things they despise. You can argue that the BS deserves that, but 2 wrongs does not make a right.
Be honest, you (The player) know that if Ashley knows any of the things that the MC and his friends have done so far, she would not have gone out with him or have broken it off with him.
Also the fact that the player(MC) is feeling that they are in the wrong... Part of the BS manipulations?
Nope... For me execution of the game is perfect, allowing the player to play more forgiving or going down a dark road of rampage.