Ellie sees Abby's handiwork, seeks her out for revenge.  Abby sees Ellie's handiwork and seeks her out for revenge.  They both lost father (and father figure).  Their stories mirror each other.  Which is fine.  The story was solid, but (for me) wasn't the deep "Citizen Kane" people made it out to be.  Which really doesn't matter, the pacing hurt the game far more than the story.

I also thought everything would have been better had it ended at the movie theater.  The extra bit at the end was beating a dead horse.    

Goku is far stronger than Kami and Kaioh, but still call both master and isn't a master himself. Kiryu is far stronger than all the masters he had in Yakuza but isn't a master himself. Mastership is about dominating one skill not being the strongest at it.

Just look at MMA or any other major fighting sports and you'll see that the champion isn't a master and sometimes isn't even that high in Dan.

So saying Vader was weaker than Palpatine because he isn't a Master and the other is, doesn't hold. Also from what I remember Vader was the one that vanished all Jedis from the Universe at his time.

I still find impressive that so many people think they know more than the creator of something. Lucas saying Luke is the greatest Jedi ever or Vader the strongest Sith, how can that be wrong? Creator and team making and modeling Joel but streamers know better than them. I guess we should start complaining about Kratos becoming more humane and prone to accepting help from others and even trusting a little.

In the sense of scenario A and B TLOU2 would be exactly what you are defending on RE, the only difference being that you don't get a "you win" message and get tossed to the main menu.

You play as Ellie (scenario A), play as Abbie (scenario B) - and they connect and intermingle similar to RE2, and after you beat the two you get the epilogue (or true ending, just like RE2).

I agree with you there. 

SPOILER:
I wanted it to end at the farm. That scene to me seemed like the perfect conclusion. After killing the pregnant lady, Ellie finally seemed to realize that she had gone too far and was ready to go back to Jackson, and when she pleaded for Tommy's life she actually said to Abby "Now I know why you killed Joel, I understand."
Then we have the fact that Abby not only spared her life (again) but also spared Dina's. So yeah, I was not pleased at all when she decided to go back for revenge once again. I was like, "really?"

The only reason for the last third after the theatre was for Ellie to have a rematch at the same weight class I like the game but story is the weakest part tbh it's just not executed that well an example is when Ellie and co knock off two particular people they leave a map behind that leads back to their hide out like wtf, the game should have been in two scenarios with one ending at the farm the other at the theatre. My other main gripe is the focus on realism sometimes gets in the way of gameplay for example when switching weapons an animation plays that has to finish if you do an action that cancels it you don't switch weapons which happens more time than you'd like in combat because the ammo you can carry is so limited you have to switch weapons. The is also a reticule glitch that happens sometimes where a shot will just miss despite the reticule being bang on target and the enemy, I'm not sure what causes it as it's not only happened a fair amount of times to me but I've seen it happen on streams.

Other than that I'd give the game 8/10 main because of the game play and set pieces but mind you most of my playthrough is post grounded patch which improves replay value with the gameplay options you can unlock as it makes replaying the game more customizable which with Grounded mode improves the experience heavily.

Do we even have numbers to assert that the game is "losing steam"?

Unless Cyberpunk lives up to the hype created, TLOU Part II will be the best game of 2020. TLOU is a single player game that has very little to offer after the campaign is finished. The game is one of the most atmospheric and tense ever produced, a landmark for the survival horror genre, despite all the bad will created against ND choices in terms of plot.

I find you supposition a little disingenuous. As writer it's your job to provide enough information to reader to support what you designed the character to be. If significant part of the audience balks at the characters actions, it can be a sign of poor writing.

If I design a character that is supposed to be a peerless warrior but every time he's in battle he gets the crap kicked out of him, I can't reasonably be angry at the audience for disagreeing that he's a peerless warrior. As a creator I have shown the audience nothing to indicate his prowess. So yes as a creator, what you say goes. However that doesn't absolve you from poor writing.

Side note: I am not saying it is easy. Writing is hard. Trying to step outside yourself to see your characters from an audience perspective is a difficult task.

Can it be a sign of poor writing? Yes it can. But can also just mean people either don't understand, suppose they understand better or are just unsatisfied. Also define significant part of audience.

Which peerless warrior are we talking about? Just a supposition or are we discussing someone in particular? Because yes If I directly say in the material that a char is undefeated and overpowered it would be totally strange to see he struggling. But from several media you can see undefeated (or close to it) heroes that almost all fights are struggles, to the point that when the victory is easy you'll find it odd.

And going back to the first point, yes you can say it was poorly written, but to say it is out of character would still be wrong (well guess where things almost always occur out of character? IRL. You see so many times someone saying that they can't believe that person done that thing, that they know the person fully and the person would never do it, etc). To say unexpected, poorly explained, etc are more likely things (and sure sometimes even the little explanation is a writer decision to either let suspense or audience speculation).

Sure, as I said in some comment before, it is totally valid to not like a writer decision, a change or something that you feel is out of character. The problem comes from saying that it is poor writing or wrong based on that. I totally expected Joel to die an ugly death but was honored that he looked in the eye and dared they finish it fast without any claim of mercy.

About change of directors and one not being there yes that certainly could have impacted how the story unfolded (do we know how many writers were also changed?), but some pretend that Neil tarnished another person creation while ignoring that TLOU1 was already his creation (and I'm from the team that he have been to focused on identity policies)