I agree, a harem game, where there's no downsides to picking every girl gets boring, sure there's some fun to be had with crazy orgies... but it's too much of a silly fantasy.Now personally I find harem games to be complete trash like 99% of the time. It makes no sense and makes the girls feel like mindless sex dolls for the pleasure of the MC, rather than like real people with feelings.
You don't have to date around btw, that's what the points system about with the LI's. If your MC is fooling around and not being loyal, that's because you are choosing not to be. Not that the game is forcing you to.
The Intertwined style feels more real, more relatable and allows you to live in this world.
Your choices affect the story in meaningful ways, i love seeing how characters react to our choices, including/specially the bad ones.