How actually sad and miserable sounds what you writed. Its not "very slow burn" its just story and characters in its core is overhyped pure cringe and trash and to answer why, I already in details writed above. "About story" game need to have actually logical, detailed and consistent story to be entartaining and if this was selled as book without smut, I assure you that it would fail epically and noone would read it. Im not bookworm myself, but even in compare to simply written books by some not talented authors about STALKER, this story doesnt stand even close in terms of objective writing quality. Im not even sure that Hillside have writing equal to average soap operas for middleaged women. But in actual state of !A!VN and with renders of pretty girls, this game at least became great simp simulator