I think for me it felt slightly too much like a video game. Maybe it's because I've played too many games, but scenes like the one where Joel is sniping zombies to protect Ellie in the crowd, or when Ellie has to crawl through a hole to open a door, or the big hospital shoot out (you had how many fireflies and none of them could even graze this guy that describes himself as over the hill a few episodes ago, before he went into a coma?) just left me with this "I am watching a video game" feeling.

I also felt it could be kind of blunt in a bad way, in the episode with the cannibals we know the preacher is bad because he's eating people, and we understand the threat of his attempt to groom Ellie. We didn't need to see him try to rape her in a burning building, an act he gets so distracted by that he lets himself get killed. That building was on fire, you wouldn't even be able to breath in there but he decides he has time for that? I couldn't buy it, it felt less than necessary. HBO's writing has really suffered, look at some of the spectacle scenes (were looking at you dragon pit) in house of the dragon, it's better than the latter game of thrones seasons but a lot worse than the early ones.

I get that a lot of people like that, but for me it didn't work. On the other hand I thought casting was excellent. Pedro and Bella really brought it home and without them I think it would be a lot less relevant.

that is a massive part of why that fandom is seen as weird