I get what you're saying. Obviously taking jabs at OCEAN, which is completely fine. Even though I don't feel the same way, I get it. He does have time to improve and I'll be keeping my eye on this game, but for now besides the art nothing is really mysterious or intriguing. I feel like the writing is definitely what could be improved upon the most. The music also. Much love and I hope I'm wrong because he obviously has the talent to be successful.
I personally set the bar according to the 'competency' of the developers themselves, meaning that I don't apply the same assessment or judgement to all the developers, but rather on a case by case basis.
For illustration, a AAA game company like
Bethesda will be scrutinized with the highest strict standards ever imagined, they won't get a free pass even for a typo
(mainly because they have million dollars bugdet and a school of developers working on a project).
However, for solo indie developers (which are the usual case for adult games on this site), they get almost free pass on everything, so instead of scrutinizing their weaknesses, I focused on their strengths while also providing constructive feedbacks on what they can and should improve on. Consequently, over time the feedbacks are going to be 'harsher' when nothing had been improved after certain reasonable period of time. Similarly, a 5 years veteran solo indie developer is not judged on equal footing to first time solo indie developer. Generally, I will not be too critical on these indie developers since I have no experience developing a game myself. I may think it is hard but I can't imagine and experience how hard it actually is.
That being said, writing is pretty much the weaknesses of every solo indie developer out there (including this game, not the best writing) and too bad I have no experience myself to assist on this subject matter. Normally, a duo developers (writer and artist) fare a lot better in many projects that I am aware of. I don't know how many members (and what are their roles) that make up this game production but I think they are not native English speakers.
I am pretty sure that the developer reads the feedbacks and reviews about this game, and they will do their best to improve on the writing (among other things), and just give them the chance and time to shine. I hope they do. Cheers.