The main problem my wife had with it is that you play as a fairly unlikeable character for half the run time and while yes, excellent story telling can follow people who are not likeable, it does make it hard for some people to get into it if they aren't really "rooting for anyone" anymore.
i do wish there was more time spent with Ellie at the end - Santa Barbara is like sub 2 hours instead of the length of a day in Seattle which was like 4ish hours each. its not a perfect game by any means (it peaks for example with Ellie day 3 or Abby day 2 imo) but the highs are so high that it's hard for me to focus on the negatives too much.