I personally do not count having to replay 60-80% of the exact same content, over and again, just to see the extra little bits that might be different, but won't ultimately change anything outside of their self-contained elements, to be legitimate replay value.
Pretty much this. People have limited time, and most people will only have the time to play through a game once before something else catches their eye. Knowing this, one would think that effort would be much better spent on making that sole playthrough experience as magical as possible, right? People who really want to replay a game will find reasons to do so through, say, multiplayer or a different class, and not really because of that one character's side story that you missed.
A focus on 'replay value' enforced by locking parts of the narrative and gameplay options away without much of anything to make up for that loss is honestly one of my most hated trends in gaming as of late. There are rare exceptions like WotR, in which that game specifically revolves around the concept of different paths and more importantly entirely through choices made by the player character. Compared to something as haphazard as DOS2 doing something as major as taking away half your party for... Reasons ultimately way out of your control, only really enforced through an arbitrary party limit, and now BG3 may be threatening to embark on that same path again. The best examples of replay value that exist in the gaming industry is enforced by giving players increased options with compelling reasons to pick and choose, not just taking them away.
I have to say, that decision in DOS2 in the early phases of the game ultimately did lead to the final act being as poorly received as it was. Having the entire party there to resolve all of their plot threads one by one would have made the pacing of that act seem a lot better. But with half of that personal investment in the various arcs being wrapped up in that act not existing due to half the playable cast being dead by that point, people were right to describe that act as a confusing disjointed slog instead. I actually recently did a playthrough of DOS2 with a mod that allowed me to have all party members survive the end of act 1, and it's amazing what a difference it makes in improving the overall story.
