I think harem/fuckboy routes can be amusing, but it almost inevitably gets out of hand with the sheer number of LIs. If you keep the harem small at like 4 at most things can still work for a decent story. That being said I'm all for a single LI path, give me Rose or give me death! lol
Harem is different than fuckboy though. You can have an immersive fuckboy game where MC can fuck around as a "player" type manslut, possibly forced to settle if needed near the end. Harem games are different though, with MC openly fucking a bunch of girls and everyone being happy and accepting about it, like mind-fucked drones. Which is of course ruining any immersion, especially in a college setting which should be full of relationship drama.
You can have well-written harem in contemporary setting but it has to be either some ultra rich dude with transactional relationships, or some type of cult leader. Otherwise the setting makes no sense and harem just exists to pander to a certain type of player. Glad dev changed their mind.