I might present it in a brutish way, but it's my opinion that right now with The Last of Us we see a lot of fanboy-based overrating and praise going on. I wish I could express it in a more elegant way. I do not say Sony fans or any fans love and praise everything from their respective companies, but they overrate it. That's a key element in being a fan or fanboy.

John Marston's character has so many elements of a great character. Elements that generally speaking appeal to a lot of people. He is extremely charismatic, has perfect portions of warmth, sympathy, nastyness, irony and humour, among other character feats. Much like Nathan Drake.

Joel seems to be the opposite.

Are you familiar with the action flick actors Steven Seagal and Jeann-Claude Van Damme? They are universally seen as terrible actors without any form of charisma.

I'm not saying Joel is Steven Seagal because I don't know him that well yet, but for illustrative purposes:

If John Marston is Clint Eastwood then Joel is Steven Seagal.

ok i'll try to understand

who determines whats crap and whats milk and honey?

How can you say that when you don't know what kind of things she has gone through? I mean come on she grew up in a crazy apocalyptic world where everyone is your enemy. For one if a guy hand cuffed you into a pipe and pointed a gun towards the only person you trust in this world what would you do? Would you just sit there and possibly watch the person you care about die? 

I might present it in a brutish way, but it's my opinion that right now with The Last of Us we see a lot of fanboy-based overrating and praise going on. I wish I could express it in a more elegant way. I do not say Sony fans or any fans love and praise everything from their respective companies, but they overrate it. 

Lol... here's a quote from you: "Sony fans praise everything from Sony" So which is it? You're making contradictory posts.

That's a key element in being a fan or fanboy.

John Marston's character has so many elements of a great character. Elements that generally speaking appeal to a lot of people. He is extremely charismatic, has perfect portions of warmth, sympathy, nastyness, irony and humour, among other character feats. Much like Nathan Drake.

I think you're over-rating both Marston and Drake here, but I appreciate the explanation of your opinion.

Joel seems to be the opposite.

Why? I find his character really interesting, he's the opposite to the typical action hero. He isn't there to save the day, he's a "violent thug, a brutal killer and a tortuer," yet he is our protagonist, and this is isn't in a light-hearted game like GTA or Saint's row where this isn't a big deal, this is a game with a very serious and bleak tone. That alone makes him a very compelling character to me, and ironically he shares similarities with John Marston. From what we've seen, his voice actor is doing a good job, too.

We all try to determine what is good quality and what is bad quality. With lots of room for personal preferences, but still acknowledging there exists such a thing as universal quality.

But to do this we first have to shake off our biases.

One such bias is to be a fanboy. I used to be an Xbox and even a Microsoft fanboy (I am to a little tiny extent still, but not that much.). In those days you couldn't get an honest advice or honest recommenadtion from me regarding Xbox games, because not only was I lying to myself by seeing more quality than actual was there but I also acted in the interest of the product I loved, namely distorted the truth. That's the truth.

Sounds like a typical 14-year-old to me