No he was a SURVIVOR

Seriously though I loved the Survivors mode in the multiplayer.

It's kinda like both Naughty Dog and (a certain section of) gamers both saw Joel as essentially John Rambo in a zombie apocalypse... except that Naughty Dog saw him as the traumatised and morally dubious Rambo from First Blood, whereas gamers saw him as the heroic badass Rambo from the sequels who slaughtered his enemies by the dozen. And then TLOU2 was the point where these perceptions of the character collided violently.

I don’t dispute that there are a lot of people who hate the game for stupid reasons. However for me it is not so much that the game forced me to play as character(s) I hate, but that it didn’t manage to make me care enough in the first place. I don’t find either of these characters particularly convincing at all, so I am mostly just indifferent to what happens in the story.

Part 1 on the other hand got me invested from start to finish, so when I was forced to play through decisions I wouldn’t be make, it had an impact.

I agree with some of the flaws that people point out, but I think the game is just so well made in general that the flaws stick out more than they would otherwise. If I were to list all the tropes and stupid decisions in the average game I would not be able to keep up. There are very few games that can match the story telling of TLOU2 and also have it be so well integrated into the gameplay.

It was gutsy to

Another issue I had, among others, was how we

One of the best games ever made. Gameplay, as a specific example, has been rarely matched since. Graphics, story, characters, gameplay, sound and pacing are all top tier.

Game is great, but still pretty bullshit. You seriously think Joel would be giving his name out willynilly to strangers knowing he's done bad shit and people may be looking for him? It's just bad writing, it's very apparent. I liked the game a lot, but to act like everybody is stupid for not liking certain aspects, is even more stupid. Joel 100% deserved to get killed, he's not a hero, he doomed all of humanity for his own needs, but they did it in a very lazy writing way. Still, I love the game, and was very immersed during my playtime with it. 

I recall discussion that Joel did not doom humanity for the chance that Ellie's sacrifice would have paid off was not guaranteed. I have to also wonder what the Fireflies were thinking killing Ellie and potentially destroying whatever it was that made her immune. She could have instead just been kept alive to provide small samples in hopes of developing a vaccine.

That's how the smallpox vaccine was developed: people with cowpox didn't have to die to provide for the smallpox vaccine. Just take a small sample from a cowpox patient.

That stuff about Joel giving his name.

Tommy called him Joel, yelled actually, in front on Abby before, that's the whole reason Abby asked them to go where her group was, they were going back to Jackson when Joel saved her from the horde. Abby even freezes when she hears it and Joel has to get her out of her mind so they can flee. Abby convinces them, mostly Tommy, just after he says Joel's name and she realizes it was him.

And when they get there Tommy presents himself to everyone to start knowing them to begin with, that's his way of doing things, Tommy was a decent guy, Joel clearly doesn't like it but at that point there was no point on Joel saying shut up and not giving up his name there as well, he would be way more suspicious for random people if he didn't, and they would still get his name from Abby if they were where hunting him, as they were.

Also, Joel only saves Abby, something he would very rarely do in the shitty situation she was, he didn't used to risk his life for others, because Tommy was there and the night before was when Ellie decided to finally pardon him after he says to her he would do everything again, even gaining her hate, if that means she is alive, something we know in the very first conversation between Ellie and Jesse when the game starts, but we only get to see when Ellie thinks about it when she is about to drown Abby, that talk meant the world for both of them. Ellie can't fully agree with Joel but his love for her reaches her all the same. She doesn't want to turn into Joel by killing Abby and making Levi go throught exactly what she just did.

And Joel saw someone's else Ellie on Abby and decided to save her too. It was exactly when he tried to be a good guy for once again, because of his daughter relationship with Ellie, that reality came back bitting to give him his punishment for all the shit he does. He knows it himself, when Abby is about to kill him he knows it would happen eventually and he deserved it, he has no problems accepting it himself. Everything was worth it so he could have reached the point where he saved Ellie, which he couldn't do for Sarah.

The writting on TLoU2 is very consistent and excellently well executed.