A couple of random thoughts regarding Hogwarts after having played through the story:
1. I agree that due to the discourse surrounding it (I use discourse lightly, it was more screeching on both sides), it's not going to get any official awards. Hell, we have official journalism sites NOT reviewing it (despite reviewing other controversial games that support not so great people)
2. It's genuinely a good game. The moment to moment gameplay is fun, the voice acting is very well done, the story is ..passable.
3. the best part of the game is Hogwarts, bar none. The size and complexity, with all of the secrets, FEELS exactly like I was hoping it to feel.
4. Siona was a fine character, the voice acting made it very clear that "oh okay, this is the transgender character", but I didn't mind at all, she came across as very kind and helpful.
5. if I may dip into the whole 'representation' thing a bit more, I will say that it was very obvious they were trying to be extremely representative. I haven't seen that much multiculturalism in a video game ..well, ever I think. Just in the professors, they had India, China, Korea, Uganda, UK represented, and that was just the obvious ones. It was a nice change, but it was noticeable.
6. I don't think it was ever going to make everyone happy. We had people wanting a school simulator, a full-on dragon age style RPG, etc. It's an impossible task, and they chose to stick with a almost completely linear story with some open world elements. I can see why they did that, and I think it works for the most part.
Final thought, "aggressively mediocre" is so very wrong in my opinion. There is so much passion put into the game and it's quality/polish is way above most AAA games these days. imo of course.
