The Last of Us

1) Joel was definitely dispatched with extreme prejudice, but I don't really see him getting turned into a monster. Tommy was able to understand his decision and didn't judge him for it. Ellie was pissed probably because she has survivor's guilt and wanted her life to mean something (i.e. providing a cure). She never felt she should have survived her bite when so many others she cared about died. He took the choice away from her and she was having a hard time coming to grips with that. Based on the last cutscene though, they were working towards repairing the loss of trust in their relationship. So I don't think he was being treated as a monster. The whole game was just centered around the consequences of his choice.

2) Yeah, you play the whole first half of the game despising Abby for what she did to Joel and going after her relentlessly. Then you get forced to play it from Abby's perspective. Her motivation is pretty simple. Joel killed her dad, who she was very close to, who was also trying to save the world. We have no idea if his efforts would have succeeded or if he was just murdering Ellie. But we get to see Abby's friends pulling away from her in the quest for vengeance and in the aftermath of it, her relationships are pretty strained. But by the end of Seattle Day 2, Abby's motivations have changed quite a bit as she tries to regain some of her humanity. I doubt she ever regrets killing Joel, but I also don't think she really needs to. Her motivations are easy to understand and empathize with, despite the fact that we all liked Joel from TLOU1. The point of the story is that in a world that has turned to shit, everyone is the hero of their own story and the villian of someone else's. No paladins here.

3) That scene was awful and did nothing for the narrative. It was definitely cringeworthy.

4) Agreed, its a dark and depressing game. But I felt that it was also realistic in addressing the motivations and attempts at redemption of all involved. As for Joel and Ellie, she was understandably pissed about Joel lying to her. I also think that response would be completely justified. She as much as said that she was supposed to die to give that hope back to the world, because she has had survivor's guilt that so many she cared about are dead. She says all that in her speech to Joel in the epilogue of the first. He took that purpose from her and lied about it. But we see in the last cutscene, that she understands his motivation and tells him she wants to figure out how to forgive him, paving the way for a more honest relationship in the future. That process was interrupted by Abby of course and represents one aspect of her rage.

5) Did this actually happen? I think I remember Joel telling Ellie that there were other immunes when she asked about the hospital, but I took that as a lie to cover up why she was alive and they were leaving the hospital. I don't remember from any of the artifacts in the hospital in TLOU1 an indication that there were other immune people. There would have been no reason to hide it in Jackson in TLOU2 if there were many immune. My understanding was that Ellie remains the only known immune. Ellie even tells Dina who doesn't believe her until Ellie's gas mask gets broken.

6) I would disagree here. Abby's progression is more in your face than Ellie's. During the prologue, you already see Owen starting to push back against her single-mindedness. When you start playing her in Seattle Day 1, she sees the distance some of that crew are giving her. By mid Seattle Day 2, she is abandoning her desire to fight the Seraphites, and pretty much all of Day 3 is just trying to regain her humanity by protecting Lev. She even lets Ellie and pregnant Dina live after Ellie killed Owen and pregnant Mel because she doesn't like how monstrous she looks in Lev's eyes. And she leaves, she wants no more part of the violence and goes to follow up on Owen's dream of rejoining the Fireflies to help humanity. Ellie's path to redemption comes mainly as an epiphany right at the end, but you could maybe make a case that she didn't even want to go to Santa Barbara until Tommy came and guilted her into it. As an aside, Abby didn't even seem to have anger at Ellie at this point and only fought her to protect Lev. But ultimately Ellie had to come to grips with that her singular focus on revenge was costing her her future as well, and she symbolically leaves all of Joel's stuff behind in the farmhouse as she leaves to reclaim a future with Dina and the baby. So both characters went from a mission of revenge to realizing that the cost of that revenge was exceedingly high on themselves.

7) Agreed, this was far more about the interactions between the human survivors and the pandemic was more of a backdrop to support the clannish behavior. I'd still get way more tense fighting clickers, stalkers, bloaters, shamblers than the humans though.

I recognize that its a very polarizing game and ND pissed off a lot of fans. I don't know if it was the right choice given they could have come up with a story that didn't affect how people thought of Joel and Ellie, but it was a bold choice. With the understanding that all of the characters were shades of grey, despite our notions about some of them from the first game, I found the actions realistic and understandable, given how I think the remains of humanity would act in a world such as this.
I have heard good things about GoT and watched a few gameplay videos so I imagine I'll pick that up eventually. We'll see if changes my perception of the story of TLOU2.