Like I said I fell in love with Linda right off, and feel the same about Cece. All the girl's in the game are equally lovable to me, I only down ranked Robin and Kira because they are already together, I have no interest in a three way relationship, and I don't want to split them apart.
As to the choices, Drifty has already roadmapped to the Patron's that the story is only going for 8 chapters. The choices need to be made now, although I could agree with a path where James makes no choice and remains single. That would certainly be groundbreaking in an AVN.
Yeah, I'm aware of the story schedule. I'm just worried the people who complained things were being rushed may have been right, because most of the relationships don't feel like they're at the point the story needs them to be - at least not as romances.
Steph's relationship works if you can get past her backstory. We'd already heard a lot about their old relationship (and seen snippets of it), so we have a decent idea of the base dynamic. We saw them reconnect in chapter 4 and got a sample of how things have changed or stayed the same in Chapter 5. So while it's very fast paced, I think we've seen enough to feel invested in the couple - again, assuming you can forgive Steph's previous behavior. (Which I can; my problem is that I just can't take the agent panda jokes seriously. Really kills the mood.)
Cece's relationship probably works too, if you can get past the idea of romancing her before helping her deal with her emotions. Unfortunately, I really can't; romancing her at this point just seems like an epic disaster waiting to happen and I can't stop focusing on that. Cece's friendship path just seems so much more logical at this stage.
For the other characters, I just don't think we've seen enough to make the romances work. Lexi's has a great start in Chapter 4, but it runs aground on Holly this time out. The end result is that it feels like Lexi and the MC don't quite know what they want or how to discuss it, which is a terrible way to start off a long distance relationship. As you said, I think the friendship route works better here, too.
Linda's romance has been criminally underwritten. The establishment of her friendship with the MC was damn near perfect, but that winds up working against her now because there's just no catalyst for the two of them to suddenly switch into a romance. Linda gets bad news, drop her phone, the MC comforts her - it's all reasonable, but it's the same sort of thing that has been happening since Chapter 2. So why does it suddenly lead to the two not just having sex, but (apparently) screwing each other's brains out for the remainder of the vacation? It winds up making their new relationship look painfully shallow. We really needed time to see the two reflect on the change and how they feel about it before we move on. That's going to be very hard to do next time since Linda's story needs to share time with 3 others AND still work on the friendship path.
And Robin and/or Kira's romance just collapsed in Chapter 5. Like you, I found the 3-way relationship option to feel extremely artificial. But I was intrigued by the solo routes in Chapter 4. While I hate the idea of breaking them up, the game actually presents it as less a conscious choice and more a recognition that meeting the MC has already set the events in motion. That meant the solo paths felt genuine, as though adults were trying to find a solution to a complicated situation, which gave them an unusual dramatic weight in comparison to the other romance options.
Unfortunately, Chapter 5 ruined that by a) retroactively proving that Kira and Robin's relationship was much stronger and more meaningful than they suggested in Chapter 4, b) skipping straight over the 'adults trying to find a solution' phase to 'MC and [chosen girl(s)] are a happy couple with no problems' phase in the blink of an eye, c) illustrating that that do, in fact, have a rather serious problem, and d) ignoring that problem so the MC can spend more time with Lexi. Not good. Far less than the two deserve.
So I'm sort of stuck in limbo at the moment. If the game did have a platonic friendship route I'd go with that. As is I'm really not feeling any of the options, which is just bizarre in a game where I like all the LIs.