As a whole the romance systems is most games is broken. Most games feel like they are catering to teenagers looking for a quick softcore scene and rush everything headlong to a sexual encounter. Real "friendship" relationship story lines in many games is either very lacking or quite frankly not there. Basically your left with sex or nothing.
A couple of changes I would like to see made for this industry wide.
1) Friendship storylines should be the primary focus and where EVERY relationship line starts. Work down the friendship quest line to a branch where you can go romantic or just stay friends. Or even allow a nothing option, where an acquaintance is all you want for a relationship.
2) Remove ALL gender/sexuality restrictions on romanceable characters. If the character can have a romantic plot line then it can happen with ANY choices made by the PC in relation to character creation. This is an RPG after all let us play our characters the way we like. The ONLY limitation to a romantic plot line should be on our characters actions, not the creation process.
3) Quick Sex Options: If you need to, as game developers, cater to teenage urges, the with most RPGs there is a simple solution, go the route of a brothel. One of the issues with RPGs is that the player ends up with tons of extra cash, give him an easy outlet. Go to the local brothel, pay a big chunk of gold, get a quick sexual cutscene line in games now and move on. Heck the use of the brothel could even be a plot mechanic as, if your a frequent customer perhaps you gather some sources of information for some side quests.
These of course are just my opinions. However I feel like they address a lot of complaints on all sides of the discussion.
