Ellie and Abby lives

That should... help with the fallout, I think.

I just dont understand how anyone can consider him a villain. Anyway ellie became much much worse

Seems like more than half of the leak was wrong and people got pissed for nothing, but sure that allowed early hatred for the game.

Yeah early ''hatred'' is always a bit unwise,always best to see the whole thing before forming a more solid opinion.

I have quite some problems with TLoU part 2. It is technically impressive and narratively ambitious. It is comparatively bold, daring and for that I have to applaude the developers. They risked something. Sadly, to me, the risks taken do not pay off. The following points are, in no particular order, what bugged me about the game. Obviously, spoilers:

1) Ellies surprise to Joels deeds: I always thought the ending of part 1 was so good because Ellie new (or guessed) what Joel did and still said "okay", accapting his lie. Turns out she was clueless and fell out of the sky when Joel told her. I can't believe how little she suspected. Joel is a often ruthless killer. This is made clear to her in part 1. Of course he killed them. 

2) Tommys change after Seattle: the audience should belive that Tommy went to Seattle to prevent Ellie from going. He wanted to go to keep Ellie safe. This was his priority. After Seattle though he tries quite desperatly to endanger her and is scornful when met with refusal. - Could have been better with implicit narration, with Tommy saying he understands but noticable disappointment.

3) Abbys jumbled character, since she mirrors Joel and Ellie: Abby mirrors Ellie, since both their fathers got murdered and they seek gruesome revenge. Abby takes her revenge, but eventually overcomes her dark desires. Ellie does not fully take her revenge and also overcomes her dark desires. BUT Abby is also Joel, since, after losing her humanity, she has to reconnect through an "innocent" youth to whom she can open up to (like Joel in part 1). Because of this jumbled messaging I really can't make out what ND tried to achieve with Abby.

4) Abby being a firefly and not nobody: In many respects, this game is not taking it far enough for me, is not bold enough. Abby does not even really resamble Joel, since she has somewhat of a moral justification for her deeds. Joel openly admitted to Ellie in part 1 to have been a hunter (and killing "innocents"). With Abby being a firefly and her father the doctor, Joel had it coming. Would have been better, if she was some hunter nobody, who long ago lost her humanity, than killed Joel (for food, other recources, whatever) and than tried to find her humanity in tandem with the player. This would have provided also more occasions to show Abby remorseful and in that sympathetic. Also, revenge would just begin to play a role in Abbys life after Ellie kills her friends, so there would be no lessons learnd on her side and the conflict between Abby and Ellie could have been longer while both try to kill each other. 

5) Taking too much time trying to hammer home how Abby is human: most people immediately got it. Yes, Abby is, in fact a human worthy of basic empathy. No need to drag it out so much. Let her spend way more time with Lev, so that not only the player, but finally she herself can realise that she is human. And pronounce their relationship, so that we get how important Lev is to her.

6) Ellie being cheesy with Dina: I get that teens are cringy with each other, especially when in love. But I did not feel it between those two at all. Ellie and Riley were so perfect. Dina feels really like second place in comparison (or third,... or fourth place). It would have done much to sell me their love, if Ellie did not call Dina unironically "babe". This seems like something she would make fun of, nothing to really mean. There were many examples like that, regrettably.

7) Joels death being premature to achieve feeling like Ellie, was not necessary: I get that he was killed off at the beginning so that Ellies and the players feelings are in congruence - he has been stolen away from us, forever, even though we wanted to spend so much more time with him. Now we want revenge. BUT is this rather cheap narrative tool (since everybody and their grandmother could relate to Ellie anyways) worth the price of totally not giving people what they want? Too me it is not. I'd even argue it would have more of an effect, if the game took its time to first exemane the complicated but in the end hopeful relationship between Joel and Ellie before killing him. They really left much on the table with this one.

8) Being deceitful in your marketing to a degree where you present your game as what it is not, by even creating extra content is wrong. You can edit your tailers in a cheeky way and I even very much appreciate being vague and not showing much before release. But showing things that are not in the game and creating actively a false beliefe about what that game is, that is weak.

9) Abby should be killed and Ellie should be happy: I read much analysis about TLoU part 2 and how it achievs the loss of self by deconstruction / careful examination of the other. But to lose yourself in revenge is the theme of Spider-Man 3. No shade to Sam Rami, but it is not too much of a controversial, bold story and neither is TLoU part 2. And Tobey Maguire sings: If I were to lose you, I'd surely lose myself.
TLoU part 1 achieved something great - we all really sympathised with Joel, a charakter that is genuinely human, but also quite aweful. The ambiguity ND left the first game with, was absolutely astounding in its richness. The second game is quite clear cut in comparison. It did not go far enough in many places and too far in others.
We know that revenge is bad and that there is a cost to it (-to quote Joel from the trailers). Really bold and interesting would have been for Ellie not to overcome her dark desires and not being able to let go of hatred. She kills Abby, returns home, finds Dina and is set up with a happy life before her. She has become an absolut monster and revenge seemingly has served her well. Revenge is good and you should embrace it. It ends, after showing that she is perfectly normal in her conduct with others, with a shot of Ellies face where she might realise that she hast lost part of her humanity forever and she might be glad for it. That is way more daring and quite rare a message.

But no matter thinking about what it could have been. It is, what it is. And that is disappointingly bad.

For me the issue is more how they die or how they survived, if it makes sense and keeps the characters consistent. I was willing to wait for context as my post in here said, but the context actually just made it worse. Joel somehow forgetting his survival skills and Abby miraculously getting saved by him only to kill him anyway is certainly comparable to GoT characters being completely surrounded by zombies in one scene but then totally fine somehow in the next.

Yep. I think that if a char have filled his part it is ok to have it killer. For me although the prophecy didn't make sense if HP died it could be a better made end.

Just finished it. And this time I'm positive because the credits are rolling! Jeezus, this thing just went on and on.

Managed to avoid all spoilers, trailers, reviews, etc., too. Proud of myself for that. Anyway, I posted my thoughts a few times when I thought I was at the end of the game and they weren't very positive a lot of the time. Those threads have been closed for whatever reason.

Anyway, as a Sony hater and a PS4 Pro owner, despite the parts I didn't like, despite the characters and the padding, the feeling I have right now? Maybe I was manipulated a couple of times but...

9.5/10

I'll never EVER play this game again.

Very honest opinion =]

And some games are to be played once... although TLOU2 I see myself playing again in PS5 some years in the future.