why do they care if the game is bad? I havent followed it much but as I understand it Joel dies pretty early in the game.
If the game story is bad who cares
It's woke, so they have to like it.
They're allowed to have legitimate criticisms, they keep reminding us - but it's those
darn gamers who don't like it for all the wrong reasons.
Except, of course, they happily eliminated the idea of context or the values of thoughtfulness and nuance years ago to make it easier to hate people they don't like, so anyone who criticises it will immediately get lumped in with the gamers as not liking it for bad reasons. Because they've allowed the literally insane zealot side of things - troons, primarily, in this case at least - define what is and isn't acceptable, and criticism can always get you canceled, no matter how carefully you phrase it or express it.
But remember! Cancel culture isn't real, and walking on eggshells around hypersensitive assholes for whom nothing is ever good enough doesn't actually cost you anything, especially when compared to the eons of oppression and murders they personally experience every single day.
That's why they have to like the game, and things that make it harder - like, say, a terrible plot that makes no sense and appears to be designed purely to piss off the intended audience, including brutal, devastating violence against the characters people cared about from the first game - have to be shut down. The Last of Us 2 is currently Approved Media. That can change, indications are it probably will, and they'll get little-to-no warning about when they have to switch from 'defending it from all comers' to 'if you like this you're a bigot'. But right now, criticism = violation.