I would say few liked Dragon age 2. I seen like two on this forum and both is probably just trolling.
But that is beside the point. Gaider says that Twillight is "effective in the way it portrays romance", sure he adds that it does romance well to, but what is really wrong with what he said? Clearly its success is exactly because it portrays romance in an effective way.
I would rather compare it with Avatar, a movie that really isn't anything special. But it is a movie that effectivly pulls viewers in. I heard so many that knew the story beforehand, but was still pulled in. In fact just check redlettermedias review, he explains that further.
What is wrong is that it doesn't
really portray anything. As a portrayal of romance, it's not more than a caricature. Unfortunately, for many, a caricature of the real thing is enough to wet their panties - see popularity of boy bands in the 90ies, massive sales of awesome singers like Brittney and Bieber, wild success of Da Vinci Code et cetera. As it goes, once the media machine starts marketing whatever piece of shit, that piece of shit invariably becomes popular - therefore I can't say that "many sales = good in any way", no, it's merely well-marketed for a target population and fits the lowest common denominator.
And thing is, Twilight is aimed at teenage girls - and people with a mentality of a teenage girl. What do teenage girls know about romance, or its portrayal? Not much, and clearly neither does Gaider (talking about romance plots that he's written now, not just his admiration for Twilight). I'm not even talking about realistic romance because fuck that we're not living in Realism period. I'm more about any sort of pretense that there's even a shred of credibility to the writing. Damn, Austen and the Brontës had more of an idea about romance portrayal and they were living in an era of sexual taboos in a completely male-dominant society. What Twilight does is just ridiculous.
As for Avatar, I've seen some more in-depth analysis of its attraction than RLM review, though that was pretty good as well. Not sure it affects the audience in the exact same ways as Twilight, but there are several similarities, such as new, shiny vistas and people in Avatar <==> new, shiny love interests in Twilight. Brain goes "Oooh, what's this then?" for a while in both cases, it's a sort of a natural reaction.
In any case, tl;dr, Twilight's portrayal of romance is laughable at best. Anyone to actively admire it outside the target demographic is either a liar or an idiot.
.Of course there would be the PARAGON/GAY option where you join them for a threesome
