the thing about TLOU2 and forcing you to make morally reprehensible or controversial decisions, as to generate shock value to continue the story is that, no matter how hard Duckmann may try to spin it, this is still a videogame
when perform an action in a videogame, you get invested in the character that performs the action. you and the character share the same objective because the story's role here is to make you simpatize with the character and his aspirations
when you kill off the most beloved character of its prequel what 99% of players will have in mind for the rest of the game is how they'll want to avenge that character, no matter what Ellie's actual intentions are.
there is many great examples of game designers using the medium they have at their disposal to create a sense of remorse through the players actions without having the character he controls be straight up unlikeable
take No More Heroes 2 for example, the game presents itself as a gorey, light hearted hack n slash that doesn't take itself too seriously at first, the people you kill are over the top, colorfoul and sometimes even likeable in a way where you'd still have no trouble in killing them. then the reality slowly sets in: the people you killed are, in fact, people, with feelings and all of that, and the impressive thing about NMH2 is that it takes very little actual dialog most of the cases to achieve that. but when this realization comes in it's too late to stop and the game makes sure you understand the only way to get out of the mess that you created for yourself is to keep going, even making sure the final boss of the game is horrendously hard and intentionally giving the player a payoff not worth the efforts to get there, to replicate how the character controlled by the player really feels.
none of this could have been possible in any other medium
meanwhile TLOU2 is just an interactive movie with unlikeable protagonists and an ending that made no one happy because Ellie's path of supposed redeption didn't match the players' intentions at all and it doesn't work as a heel turn either because its supposed to be seen as a morally just decision
