Huh, interesting, I actually don’t like this. Part of what attracts me to an RO is them being interested in me, because then I know the feeling could be mutual. If everyone is attracted to me somehow, that just isn’t a factor at all.
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Frankly, to me it doesn’t sound like a power fantasy at all - it sounds like a nightmare.
I apologize if that came off sounding overly harsh. I mean mostly that that’s a situation I would want to see handled very carefully. If I felt that multiple characters were attracted to my character because of who my character was as a person, that would certainly be … I guess a power fantasy of sorts, although it feels weird to me calling it that. But if I felt those characters were attracted to my character regardless of who my character was, I wouldn’t enjoy that. There’s nothing flattering to me about fungibility and it’s uncomfortably close to the kind of situation that tends to turn into sexual harassment in real life.
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I actually get what you mean. I feel pretty bad when most NPCs are antagonistic towards MC, especially if we haven’t chosen to do anything bad to them.
Although the other side of this is insta-love, which can work with established relationships (childhood friends, coworkers, etc.) but seems hollow when the characters just met.
In general, I actively look for romance, but I’ve enjoyed books without it, like The Parenting Simulator or Choice of the Cat. The first case is because I love parenthood stories and having the relationship between parent and child as the focus of the narrative is rewarding enough for me. The second case is because if I’m playing an animal, it’d weird me out to even think about romance. In 99% of other cases, though, I will probably not feel interested enough to play/read/watch something if there isn’t romance in it. Mind you, my favorite genre isn’t Romance, but Fantasy and/or Adventure, but I want those to have some good love stories between fighting evil wizards and sailing the seven seas.
I’m just a sucker for love stories and I value characters and their relationships (also family, friends, etc.) before plot, for example. Friendships, however, unlike child/parent relationships, can be tricky, because more often than not I end up shipping them 
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Typically, romance-centric games have deeper characterization and more fulfilling relationships for the MC, both romantic and platonic. That said, I’ve also seen a high percentage of games that include a one page conversation with a LI and then suddenly they’re in love and the MC bangs them and that was the “romance.” Sorry. Nope. That’s not romance. But it’s better than nothing, I guess.
Another reason I prefer romances in text-based games is because it adds something to a stat raiser that keeps me interested. I freaking loathe stat-centric games. If I want to deal with that crap, I’ll play a video game, where I actually have some physical control of my character. If I have to play a text-based game where the entire purpose is to pass stat checks, I get bored as hell because, oftentimes, there’s no real meat to the story.
Plus, you can’t even RP properly, because if you don’t focus on a single stat, your character fails. Sorry, but most beings aren’t wired to be a cartoon character where they exist for one single stat and never vary from it. So the game is just a matter of building your stats, passing the checks, and either dying or being a god-like being with no soul. In order to tolerate that garbage, I need a romance so my MC can be something other than a one-dimensional nothing burger.
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Saaaaaaaaame! 
I like.to.feel loved/pretty in my stories, I totally get you. And when I think back, I believe most of my relationships irl started off with an instant connection, so it doesn’t feel unrealistic to me. I also don’t enjoy a slow burn…irl or in my fiction. It feels frustrating in both cases, to me. When I like someone I tell them and suffer the consequences. If they don’t feel it, I move on. /shrug
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Choice games or any if game really are super short. If you look at a book like wheel of time it has about 1-200,000 words, the average choice game might look to have the same but in reality they’re much shorter because of the choices and the code. An example being fallen hero in which total word count for the sequel in the forum alpha was 120,000 but each playthrough is only 9,000 words. That’s a lot shorter than the average book.
Why does this matter in relation to the question, well for me at least with how short choice games are and with few being serialised I feel characters are often lackluster and not well developed, how can they it’s impossible in 9000 words while cramming so much else. So for me romance in if games are possibly the easiest way to describe you character and their emotions/actions better and more in depth and with a shorter word count than in any other way. This is why romance is almost a must for me because it’s the best way for me to see these characters on the most developed way.
Of course this isn’t always true but it seems to me that a lot of the times it is and it’s harder for writers to show their characters without romance.
Edit: fallen hero retribution actually has 500,000 words and an average playthrough of 50,000 roundabouts looking at the most recent forum update.
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