I agree with that things you said about Jess/Jace. About the evil stat; they didn’t seem that evil to me, more pragmatic which doesn’t necessary includes someone being evil and my point here was proved when I was able to romance them with a “good” character.
About your warning I noticed also that I can get really thin to the line the RO requiresand still get accepted. Once again I’ll come up with Jess as an example I was able tk romance her with a character who is good and a wisard. But I hat to make some sacrifices in order to get that (about sacrifices I mean that in order to get these things mentioned before I had to make choices which didn’t fit the MC I was playing but it was required to get the romance with her). Anyway I can appreciate if an author makes a really a good effort into character building. @JimD is a really good example for this imo. They have many NPCs and all of them have a unique personality and that’s just makes their games more interesting.
Despite my initial intentions of reading each reply before posting my own thought about this, I’m posting this after reading only a handful of responses. Hopefully, my reply won’t just be a parrot of what’s already been said. My intentions were pure, I swear.
My take on the subject of this thread is a lot in the same ways of how I write and what I like to read. I don’t care nearly as much about something being “realistic” (sometimes, that’s more of a hindrance than a boon) as I do that it’s “believable”. In my own WIP, I’ve quickly spiraled into giving myself a lot of work by making it a mission to compensate what is a limited cast of “romance options” based on the player’s gender (though for two characters in particular, that has no bearing on the relationship) by simply giving a lot of options for however the player might… well, play.
That said, I am making it a point not to nail down what the player’s sexuality is. Now that I think of it, fluidity/adaptability is actually a big theme in what I’m writing. What’s most important to any character the player interacts with is what they do. Sure, words are important. I think it’s fair to say that slipping in a “I think Hitler had the right of it,” in the middle of a date is likely to be a turn-off. But for the most part, the player making certain decisions is what’s going to cue what sort of (if any) relationship might be there. This is true even for characters who aren’t RO’s.
I agree that you can’t please everybody but I don’t feel like I’m complaining, just trying to understand the point of view from people who don’t agree with me; I hope you don’t think I’m just straight up arguing with your points to prove myself right because we are just typing our opinions after all.
On that note, I personally can’t get rejected by a character and just say, “Oh well, that sucks. Onto my second play through and romance!” It can ruin the game for me, especially if I spent the entire reading experience trying to romance someone and they reject me towards the very end. Now this is probably because I get a little too emotionally attached to characters I read about especially with great writing and an intense plot but I feel like that’s how I enjoy reading these interactive books. I also don’t think that avoiding having a rejection in the epilogue or having a character romance either gender takes away their personality, it’s been done well in multiple games before.
I understand your point though, this will eventually turn into “I’m right and you’re wrong!” Agree to disagree then.
No I don’t really see this as an argument just writing our opinions here.
In a way I can see you point too I can also really like an NPC that’s why I’m willing to do yet another playthrough just for the sake of romancing them. I think this is where it’s awesome that it’s just a game and not IRL, you can just solve everything with replaying. Anyway about having an RO either gender, you mean characters whose gender can be choosen by the player? If that’s what you mean then here’s my opinion about that: some authors do actually pull it off the right way, but there are also cases where I’m not sure it’s bc of these or the author just isn’t that good in writing ROs anyway there were cases in my experience where the NPCs just didn’t seem interesting enough to me; for an example I would mention Mecha Ace, that game wasn’t bad either it was just more on the flat side for me when in came to ROs.
Anyway don’t misunderstand me I’m not trying to convince you here that the way I see it is better then your POV or something like that.
Mm, considering the romance parts on Co/HG are always some of my very favorites, I also really like when there’s a big variety of romanceable characters, specially when each has a unique personality, traits, and overall concept… I don’t recall facing any issue in regards to ‘limitations’, though, on the games I’ve played, but, I also think that the more balanced and equal the romance paths, the better, so there’s something for everyone’s taste! 
I also prefer when the MC’s gender is not taken into account by the other characters, when it comes to romance (which I think people are calling playersexual here), since what actually matters are all of the other aspects that compose that MC’s personality and identity… Although, in regards to the fact you -do- actually have to invest a given amount of time and extensively show interest for a character in order for a romance option to be available, I prefer it that way… It’s more realistic… Even more when you are unable to sustain 2 or more romance paths past a certain point.
Making it otherwise, simply for the sake of doing everything one may expect or want, in a single playthrough, imho, kinda entirely kills the essence and the fun of it, the play-once-and-forget thing. The best part of CYOA games is to play and replay many, many times, and restart from the mid-game as much; it takes patience, but as long as you’re enjoying it, and so the results, that’s what makes it fun. It adds value, makes things more interesting, and every lil’ advancement or success feels worthier than playing the entire game just once and expect to experience all there is to. I love to make and run different playthroughs if only just so as to experience every romance path a game offers, regardless of the character. So, in a nutshell, I think things are going nicely as they are, so far, in that regard… Although, the more romance choices and branches, the better! 
(And if some of those are hard-earned for an added flavor, that’s a bonus!) 