This game was pretty promising, and had a lot of edge-of-the-computer chair moments, well, not really for me, since I was lying in bed recovering from an illness for most of this game.
I agree with a lot of you, a lot of the characters don't really grow or develop meaningfully.
I think this game did a very good job of realistically portraying how society and social order crumbles in extreme disasters, but on the other hand I don't think the writer(s) did a good job resolving these issues.
I thought the slow development of Kuwagata into the antagonist was brilliant, and that it was rather realistic, and you could see the seeds sown clearly, but they totally blew it in the good ending. I agree with a lot of people in that the Good Ending was actually pretty underwhelming and that I almost prefer the Normal Ending even if Tanomura (one of my favourite characters) is brutally murdered. Kuwagata hadn't even reformed! He didn't even think he was in the wrong after all of those heinous acts, but maybe it's easier for him to just believe he was righteous.
To be honest, about Tanomura:
at the start of the game I expected him to turn on the group or have ulterior motives since he was always unnaturally cheerful all the time.
Aroe... simply put, was a nuisance. She was dead weight and a liability the entire time. She's relevant to the plot only once in the whole story and the rest of the time I wish I could skip all her scenes. She was a character who could have been something special but ended up being an annoyance.
It's actually quite surprising that no one really attempts to kill her when humanity eventually gets thrown out the window.
Still a very good emotional game that I would recommend to anyone who isn't suicidal (because this could send them over the edge). I think the staff did a great job conveying the atmosphere and emotion of a hopeless situation but they faltered in the resolution.
I'll never really understand why Fate/Stay Night is so adored... maybe because I despise the main character, I think Tsukihime was a much better story.
Ever17 still ranks up there as probably my top VN, but even it has it's flaws... like it's extremely convoluted/contrived "True Ending" >_> But that's another story.