I'd say that pretty much sums up VNs no? If you have a game without a gameplay...is it still a fully fledged game? I obviously don't have anything against VNs on this site. Renpy or any other engine but I find it insulting towards the developer to hate his game because it's a game and not a VN. And that's what I feel from most of the comments in this thread.
I guess it depends, people have different levels of interest or dedication when it comes to dealing with challenges/obstacles. Depends on the game or the people, i guess.
Not to mention sometimes you have a machine or some other issue that makes you utterly unsuited for a certain phase/quest/etc and it leaves utterly stumped in the game without some skip or 3rd party save to get you through that one thing that utterly ruins the game for you. I for one have
exactly this sort of problem with Urban Demons, where i simply have no way whatsoever to advance certain characters, because doing so requires the invisibility skill - only obtaining it requires catching 6 stones while escaping a goblin that tries to eat you, and to be blunt, i'm a complete utter failure in any such scenario due to subpar eye-hand coordination when it comes to moving quickly through the use of a keyboard, so i know i'll
never get through it on my own.
So i can kind of relate, even though i'm not throwing some angry rant at dogs & etc (truth be told i have just Dloaded the game and not even played it yet, so have no real opinion on degree of challenge either way, though i admit myself to be at least somewhat into "want info/lazy" spectrum of players).