I agree about the female mc ntr being usually very weak (can be good corruption but rarely good ntr), but I disagree about the mc being all about angst and jealousy. NTR mystery has an oblivious mc, and yet ntr feel can be strong, mainly because the reader/player knows something is going on, so it's not exactly "identify as" the mc, it's more like a third pov who can slightly empathise with the mc by knowing that the girls are being corrupted, but is not the mc.
At least that's the case for me.
The character might not know what's going on it's not necessary for him to display certain emotions or angst it's about what feelings that game instills in you personally. Imagine playing NTR Homestay from male POV or Henteria Chronicles 2 - the characters are kind of oblivious, but the real you can clearly see the scenes in HC2 or notice some changes or suspicious things in your wife's behaviour playing NTR Homestay and you know that something must be going there cause you're playing an NTR game. Whether you identify with those chars or not the feelings that it gives you (you say emphatise) are not something funny and exciting, it is something rather dark, isn't it? And Netorare is supposed to stir these kind of feelings. That why I guess I don't personally dig 'lighhearted' or silly NTR like
Indecent Wife Hanna or
NTR by Clumsiness (though Hanna might be more of a sharing game than netorare, if there is any at all).
Although again I don't get when people say I don't identify with this MC guy - you clearly are put into shoes of these chars and in provided examples you run around doing quests and interacting with othes chars and making choices as Noah or you read VN that is clearly being narrated from your POV in case of NTR Homestay; the narration centers around you so when you got there on a business trip to another town you're being shown another town and hotel room etc. and there is no way of knowing what the other chars are doing (which plays well for mystery NTR) apart from some limited electronic communication.
It's easier not to identify with someone when you think about books - cause there is nobody to control or make decisions, the narrator/author is usually can be seen in a sense as some ominpotent separate being flying around and describing various characters and their actions in different parts of a book, sometimes shifting in time. Still, if you think e.g. The Count of Monte Cristo or Three Musketeers perhaps majority of people consciously or not identify themselves with clear main chars being D'Artagnan and Edmond Dantès. They say that people like superhero movies nowadays cause they identify subconsciously with the heroes and feel kind of powerful and like it.
Got an idea that people might be addicted and desensitized to shitloads of NTR games they play hence the trouble with identifying with MC - with the sheer amount of characters and stories they churn through. Anyways, I think the more you get into the story, build-up if there is any good one, and identify with cucked MC - the more impact you'll get from Netorare game or other works. Have to say that such things as manga/manhwa and maybe hentai are closer to books IMO in terms of identifying with cuck as there is usually that omnipotent author/artist POV showing you everything in their work and it's more natural to identify with/as some incorporeal neutral spectator, 'fly on the wall' so to speak. Again, maybe if people both read a lot of mangas and play games and it all kind of mixes that's the reason why they experience troubles identifying stronger with controllable chars in games or prefer not to.
Last thing with this whole identification thing - IMO in Fem POV games you sort of find yourself as far as you can get from identifying with cucked MC cause you either can see yourself as some spectator or by the virtue of my logic identify with Fem MC controlling her decisions and interactions, including her cheating, which makes for the least impactful netorare effect on you possible in terms of those darker and complex emotions. So that might be the reason why many people report that Fem POV NTR games are 'weaker' NTR wise or they like them much less than Male POV games. Again, to me Fem POV games unless your BF/GF/husband etc. gets stolen which virtually never happens (I can only recall
Nanase Family Affairs where IIRC mom of Fem MC bangs her BF) aren't netorare games and I doubt they fit Netorare definitions you can find here in the first message or on VNDB.
