All that stuff about Lena's character is no more than your perception of her based on very limited data of the very early version of the game. Actually, we know almost nothing about her at all. And more than that she is a playable character. Whether she is a fighter or quiter, strong or weak-willed is supposed to be up to the player. And I'm sure it will be. Just like in GGGB. Ashley could be a diligent student or stupid whore. And most probably it will be the same for Lena.
That is true that we know very little. And that is also true that we haven't seen all of Lena's or Ian's personality yet.
However, you can read between the lines and apply basic logic to analyze their character. When I see that Lena works 2 jobs and has side gigs, she strikes me as a very responsible and hardworking person. I know that it's still early to say and I might be ahead of myself to jump to conclusions but ORS feels very different from GGGB. If GGGB is more like Mass Effect or Skyrim where Shepard's or Dragonborn's personality is up to the player, ORS feels more in line with the Witcher: You do have choices but all those choices are based on who Geralt is and you can't change the core of his character.
And about repeating. Let's be frank here. All adults games revolve around the same concepts. You cannot invent something new here. Nothing new under the sun. It is impossible not to have some already explored routes from GGGB because there were so many of them. Ashley experienced almost every aspect of sexual human relationships in GGGB. She was a loyal girlfriend and cheater, straight or lesbian, loved big cocks, old guys, even a trans. Following your logic we should let it all go too. Why repeat?) Well, Eva Kiss hasn't explored sexual relationships between people and dogs or horses. That would be something new. If no repetion is so important, that's the way to go.
There's a difference between exploring similar themes and blatant copypaste. That's why we have many fantasy stories with a hero journey for example. You could argue that all of them are essentially the same story with the same morals, and yet all of them deserve recognition because they have something unique to them. That's why Star Wars sequels are so divisive. The Force Awakens is an unoriginal and pointless retread of the New Hope with different skins. It managed to succeed only because of nostalgia and the sour taste that Prequels left.
If it was all done before, GGGB wouldn't really have as much success as it did. There are very few adult visual novels with so many various choices and a well-written story. If you really think that GGGB explored everything, this is quite a narrow outlook to have. You are still thinking in terms of GGGB and think that ORS is GGGB 2. All of these weird perversions are not necessary to bring something new to the table. Although Ashley might have experienced many types of sexual relationships, I don't think she experienced many types of emotional relationships. Even if you take a similar idea, you can present it differently so it has something new and worthy of telling/showing. You can tell many different stories without either copypasting GGGB or resorting to paraphilia. Cocaine as a narrative device has exhausted itself in GGGB. Saying that you have to have it again in to trigger various sexual scenarios is underestimating EvaKiss' talent. I can imagine drugs being present to some extent but more like a cameo, only in a couple of scenes or on one path with 1 side character. Similar to the sex club scene on the Mom route in GGGB.
Or Ian and Lena are just going to revolve around the same people and affect them by the player's choices. The choices made by Ian are going to influence events and people around Lena, and those, in turn, are going to influence her. And Lena's choices are going to influence events and people around Ian and so on.
All of this is true. However, if them knowing each other and interacting with each other is not critical to the story, the very first scene wouldn't be the one in the cafe where they get to talk for the first time. It could start in Perry's apartment with Ian introducing himself and the rest of the world (the playground) to the player. Usually, in all the good stories, the first introductory scene sets up the most important thing about the narrative, be it the tone, the message, the conflict, the character or everything at once. And in the very first scene, we have very little control, both narratively and mechanically. As a player, you can only quit the game. And as Ian, you don't even get to choose whether you want to talk to Lena or not. Instead, Lena is the one who starts the interaction which Ian and the player can only react to. EvaKiss proved to be competent at writing and I don't think that it wasn't an intentional narrative choice to give the player a hint.
Anyway, time will tell. I am not claiming to be all-knowing or stating that I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. I just think in terms of what is more likely to happen. All of my reasoning and arguments could become pointless and mute once 0.2 comes out and I will just accept that my expectations were different from what EvaKiss has envisioned. But I realize that this is her story and she can do with it whatever she wants and I embrace it for what it is and what it's going to be.
