I appreciate that you take feedback well. I don’t mean to discourage you, but based on your response, the input does sound like the game is irredeemable and did sound like I am trying to discourage you.
It could also be that I’m accustomed to different styles of writing for character development and world-building—authors like Torimiata (Blurring the Walls), HangoverCa (The Edge Of), Caribdis (Eternum), and BCG (Moonripple Lake) to mention some. While I’m not saying they’re perfect, they excel in one or more areas like pacing, character backgrounds, motivations, and cohesive world-building.
In their stories, events feel interconnected—things happen because something meaningful triggered them, not arbitrarily. For example, extreme scenarios like a wife being tied up and abandoned on a train with random strangers feel implausible without proper buildup. Similarly, a scenario where the wife secretly works as a sex worker or waitress at night while telling her husband she’s at home in bed feels inconsistent, especially when her goal is to help him get out of jail and he's the one who asked her to join the night shift. There’s no clear reason for her to hide this from him. That’s what I meant when I said, “His wife and her child are portrayed as overly promiscuous without any depth or nuance.”
That said, if you’ve built a community that appreciates your story for what it is and how you’re currently writing it, my feedback might not be as helpful as intended. I also understand that not every story will appeal to everyone, and I can live with that.
I enjoy reading, and I can be a bit picky about what I read. Even so, I want to commend you for being receptive to feedback. If I came across as harsh, that was never my intent. Keep up the good work!