Photorealism isn’t the enemy it’s often painted to be. Otherwise live action movies would be bland. Photorealism is a problem when it doesn’t have good art design behind it. Cinematography, lighting, environment design, etc. No reason realistic can’t also be interesting artistically.

Please don’t make me want this game. I’ve finally made myself skip one after years of disappointments.

tldr rich people bad

Sure. I’m not throwing shade on that. I often use an ad blocker myself. But it’s still a symptom of a larger problem - people being increasingly unwilling to pay for quality content. Ad abuse got worse because the ad market started collapsing.

Where’s the lie though. Our box art was infamously awful.

We’re in a world where what I value out of a review now isn’t minute one buying advice, but thoughtful reflection on someone’s time with the game and their critique of it. If anything, that’s improved by the writer taking their time and not rushing.

I totally understand that people are used to things being free and paywalls can be frustrating, but people wonder why all the good sources for news and information are disappearing and then they run ad blockers and complain about paywalls.