In my opinion, I think customization, replay ability, and content are the most important factors, and Life of a Wizard achieves that. Although I haven’t played many CoG/Hosted games.
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Replay-ability, plot and depth of the characters. If there’s one thing I don’t like in especially some of the official games is that the RO’s tend to be fluff with all the depth of a cardboard cutout. (There are some exceptions to this, of course.)
Specific examples… Well, I really like Unnatural, but I think it could do a bit better on the replay-ability front plot wise.
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It’s in the title “Choice of” allowing the reader to have a free choice in any situation/ most situations is an important factor.
Achievements: proberly, depending on the game situation and type.
Character creation: having no set features is a good thing to have since the MC can look like anything the reader wants to instead of being set.
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The ability to go completely against what the story expects you to be, and it still work
A story that is interesting
Characters that make you want to pay attention to the story
Plot, Choice, and Replay.
Excellent in those areas
Life of a wizard, tin star, guns and sabers of infinity, way walkers.
did Pretty well in those areas (at least 2 of 3 excellent)
unnatural, Lords of aswic, gambling with eternity, Community College hero
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Plot definitely, I would say Choices and Replayability are the same because without good options provided, you got no reason to replay, and Characterization both for the MC and the NPCs
though I haven’t finished Tin Star, i think it’s one of the game that achieves it
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I’m working on edits atm so I’ll keep that in mind. 
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The plot itself is great, but it gets a bit tedious replaying the same things over and over again when trying to get all the various romances. Then again I doubt there are many people who’d replay the whole thing a couple dozen of times just for that. 
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Many people look at the code after playing once normally - I actually am surprised at how many times people say this.
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Plot, choices (and how meaningful they are to the plot, because putting a bunch of choices just for the sake of it it’s kinda useless) and characters (that includes character customization).
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The amount of times I replay a COG game after I play it is ridiculous, if I like the game enough, that is. I didn’t even know you could look at the code.
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I think the variance of choices is #1; how many different ways can I accomplish the same objective? Can I choose my own objective, too?
Then it’s the number of endings. I want to see how effective I was during the story, I don’t want to win in 8 different ways, I want to see what I compromised to act like I did.
Finally it would be character customization. I think there’s a balance between too much and not enough. Heroes Rise did a good job.
Choice of Robots for example was more of an accomplishment in regards to the first two items in my list, not 3. I liked Robots more, so they are numbers 1 and 2.
that seems the boring and slightly lazy way like putting in cheat codes to get save time or get what you want
edit: as @FairyGodfeather mentioned in a reply doing it for the learning code i can see would be useful after exhausting enjoyment value
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There are a few people on the forum who do this. It’s generally those of us who enjoy reading code and seeing what goes on behind the scenes. I’d hardly say many though, we’re a very small minority.
Most people don’t, they’ll replay the game. once, or over and over again because that’s what they enjoy doing. And that way you can unlock achievements.
I’ll play the game through at least once. Only once I’ve exhausted my enjoyment playing the game, will I look through the code to see everything else. I really like reading code, it helps me learn more about coding myself.
But I also like cheat codes. 
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Mine’s very similar to this.
Plot. The story comes first, it has to be interesting to me.
Character. For me this includes having a lot of interesting characters you can interact with.
Choice. Choice is important too, it’s a choice game after all. But I’d rather have a tightly focused game with less choice, and a really good story, than a game filled with a whole lot of choices and not much story.
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for me choice wise if it helps the story, and helps you keep from being ripped out of the story zone its good if its one of those two its ok, if neither why is it here. I need a reason for the choice
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I said “many” because it has been more than I thought initially of those I know who read CoG games. Whether they are a minority or not, I’m not qualified to say because I don’t have raw statistics to qualify my statement such.
I’m weird - I dislike “achievements” but I do like replaying the story-games. Usually I will play two or three sessions, put the story away for a couple of months then rinse and repeat later. Hollywood Visionary is the latest title I replayed this way just yesterday.
Sometimes people will use the code to “cheat” or to discover “how to” accomplish something. Complicated games like @Lucid’s Lost Heir games are harder than others and people are going to be people. I wouldn’t characterize people who look at code as “lazy”.
As a matter of fact, most people I know who look at the code are as intense and industrious as I am or more-so.
There are many different reasons to look at the code; just don’t assume one particular reason is the majority reason.
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With everything said, I still only can come up with a singular factor that is “important” above any other and that is the writing of the story.
Many other factors come into play when discussing whether I “like” a title or not but only one determines if I read the story more than once or not and that is the writing of that story.
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was not trying to assume that’s why i said “seems” it gives the appearance i was willing to accept other possibilities. Im aware of the intense ones, and i think you are correct on what you say, in both this post and the next in my eyes.
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- MC customization
I admit this mostly means gender and sexuality. I’m okay with playing a MC that has a pre-defined personality. - Character depth
As with all media types, the more I care about the characters, the more involved in the story I’ll be. - Writing Style
Now this can mean a number of things and I’m not so sure I can explain it. I dislike it when authors describe the surroundings too much, or when they spend too much time describing an elaborate backstory - having a few thousand words long info dump in the beginning just tires me out. Obviously, this is a matter of taste.
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