YMMV / Witness: A Bodyguard Romance

• Base-Breaking Character: Niamh was written to be abrasive, but there's an even split between people who see her as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and a refreshing change from the typical Vanilla Protagonist, and people who see her as a whiny, entitled Jerkass who alternates between treating Cassian poorly and flirting with them even though they make it clear it could cost them their job.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Chapters: Interactive Stories-esque model of diamond choices is widely hated, since it requires you to spend diamonds to avoid acting like a jerkass, and some of the premium options cannot reasonably be described as "premium" by any sane person. However, the scene in Chapter 27 where you have to spend diamonds to avoid being tasered (meaning that if you don't spend diamonds, Niamh complains about getting hit by a taser she didn't even try to dodge) is so ridiculous that it's hard not to laugh. The icing on the cake is that, by this point, there are quite a few people who would actually pay diamonds to have the taser hit her, instead of the other way around.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Not the book itself, but the chapters tend to be over quickly, even if you pay for the premium choices to lengthen things up.
• Older Than They Think: This isn't the first book to have multilayered diamond scenes. The first is Endless Summer, when you have to pay 19 diamonds to go with Sean and Jake on the boat, then an additional 20 to fight the sea monster in order to get a clue.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Several chapters feature premium sex scenes, but rather than paying a set number of diamonds up front for the entire scene, the player is forced to spend a small amount of diamonds to initiate the scene and then make extra diamond purchases to take things further. Allegedly, the intent is to allow the player to determine how far the romance scene will go and provide a cost-effective alternative to those who want some intimacy without splurging for a full sex scene, but it comes across as a shameless cash grab. For example, sex scenes are usually 30 diamonds, but the full scene in Chapter 1 requires the player to spend a total of 50 diamonds.
  • The diamond choice system in Witness as a whole is notably bad for being the only one that tries to replicate the Chapters: Interactive Stories model of having short and inconsequential premium choices for ordinary lines of dialogue, with the free options making the protagonist come across as unlikable^note such as the infamous scene where Niamh tells Cassian she hates breakfast after they had just made some for her. Thankfully, Pixelberry seem to have caught on to this, since no other Choices book released since has implemented the Chapters model.
• Squick: During Chapter 4, Niamh burns her hand while cooking lobster by picking up the pot with her bare hand and the premium "sexy" option is to have Cassian suck on the burn instead of the sensible free choice like putting ice on it.
• The Scrappy: Niamh, due to acting like a jerkass throughout the story and complaining a lot, and making many stupid decisions that lands her into trouble out of impatience, which causes a lot of extra stress and work to Cassian, yet the latter continues to care about her anyway. This is to the point where readers believed Cassian deserved a better partner and even a few players considering on rooting for Aisling killing Nimah.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some players think Cassian should've been the protagonist instead of Niamh because they think the romance would be more compelling from Cassian's point of view, and the mob would play a more prominent role in the story.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many players are disappointed that the storyline on Niamh hiding from the mob barely gets any focus because they consider it more interesting than her and Cassian's conflicted romance. It could've been an opportunity to address the issue of a character suffering from PTSD and receiving therapy. Not helping matters is that Killian and Maeve O'Connell appear intermittently since Chapter 2. Players think they should regularly appear and threaten Niamh and Cassian in order to make the former's need for witness protection more believable.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: In a rare case for Niamh, she has the option to get justifiably angry at Cassian for working against the O'Connells before because it would blow her cover if they saw them. Yet the game treats her as being in the wrong, and punishes the player by withholding backstory for choosing that option.