It has been a little over two months since I've finished Muv Luv Alternative. This game plagues my mind every single day, literally living rent free in my head. Unfortunately, it is not in a good way. Muv Luv Alternative is a long journey, one that I did not enjoy and believed to be thoroughly disappointing.

It is all dragged down by long sessions of info-dumping. The pacing for this game is horrible; it takes way too long for the story to start rolling, and when the story finally seems to be going somewhere, it basically halts itself in order to present more lectures. I don't mind being told world building/other shenanigans, but it's the fact that a lot of it takes so long to get through/there's so much at once feels like it was only added there to bump up the hours needed to complete the game.

The chomp scene is a very effective scene, and definitely shows the horrors of what the characters in this world have to go through, but I can not say that for every other death scene in the game besides Meiya. It all feels cheap, repetitive and is ultimately predictable, and it only serves to be as shock factor. While I do love all of the main heroines, I feel that their characters in Alternative lacked a lot, and it was very disappointing how they were all killed of in the end when they didn't necessarily have an impact at all. The Valkyries are all waste of characters and only served to fuel Takeru's pain in a cheap manner.

Takeru's depression and PTSD, in my opinion are well written, but, one serious scene when he's in his depressive state is very poorly written, as he attempts to sexually assault a heroine of your choosing(Which thank fucking god it doesn't happen). It shows that the writers could not think of any other way of depicting a better way of showing conflict between two characters ( ie. "the fall out") besides using something as serious as sexual assault. The same could be said for another scene involving Sumika. While the trauma Sumika has is understandable and of course that the BETAs are cruel and curious creatures, the scene is absolutely appalling, and takes away from the game, and you can tell it was put there to appeal to the eroge fans with weird fetishes and to fill out the mandatory h-scene slot.

Even if I have so many gripes with this game, I can not deny that there was a lot of love put into this project. The music is absolutely outstanding, along with some of the world building, art, and the amazing cgs that feel like animated scenes because they're done so smoothly. The political aspects of the world is done amazingly, and is very relative to real world political issues/problems with in the government. The coup arc, in my opinion one of the best parts of the game, and it also delves into Meiya's relationship with her sister. Another thing is the romance with the 00 Unit/Sumika. It may just be me being a sucker for childhood friends to lovers, but I just absolutely loved their relationship. The care Takeru has for Sumika is very sweet and I love how he reassures her that she is human. It's very warm and tender. Yuuko is another character that made this vn worth finishing, as she's an absolutely interesting character, even if she's mostly info-dumping half the time.

Despite being thoroughly disappointed by the game, I am glad that others got more out of it than I did, and believe that it should be read by others in order be discussed. Muv Luv Extra was unironically better though.
TL;DR good ost, cgs interesting world building all brought down by endless exposition and scenes that were there only to shock the reader for quick emotional value.