I can't remember how far into the game I got, but after several hours of playing I kind of got bored with it. There were elements of the story that I did find captivating, but the road through it just took so long, the AI art got stale fairly quickly into it, and just... the fact that there are no choices whatsoever really makes it dull. I could only sit and click through scenes for so long before it felt like it was just dragging on and on. A part of me is still curious where the story was going to go, but not enough to return to it.
Honestly I am ok with this, i find there are setups similar to this, but they never progress far because they try to give choice from the start. So for example for the amount of work you have done, if you gave us choices, others would only be on chapter 2, and potentially not even done with chapter 2.
I am honestly glad to see a fleshed out story before we are given the options to interact with the story as it seems like a breath of fresh air.
I think working backwards on choices once you complete the "Main story" is easier to think about. and gets a complete story out anyone can enjoy and not be waiting for as long. if you work on the branches early you increase your workload by that many choices. For example, not sure if you plan this, what if instead of the 2 girls competing to be the biggest they pool their catalysts into one or the other. Big differences that require 3 different stories, 1 how you have it, 2 if Sam gets it all, 3 if Alex gets them all.