Firstly, I won’t play anything that doesn’t have an LI with long hair. If he exists but his personality sucks, then I won’t play - but I like many kinds of personalities, and having long hair comes with its own usual tropes I’m familiar with, so not often do they have the looks but not personality. This also is an art thing. If the art style is so -_- it distracts me from imagining him as hot in my head, I’ll pass.

Once that’s covered, I look at the setting. I don’t care that much about organized crime (even if historical), contemporary corporate culture, or … most other regular contemporary settings. I like historical and fantasy stuff (low fantasy too). I can be won over by things set in this normal world if the basic circumstances are something that probably won’t happen to me, like a death game.

Writing makes or breaks a game for me, but previews can only tell you about word choice and diction, not how the story comes together or how the characters are developed… sigh.

If the premise intrigues me, then I'll usually be willing to play.

Art plays a strong role—but even if I love the art, I won't play if the premise sounds boring. I'll push through bad art for a good story. I find this weird because I am not willing to do the same for an anime or manga. This isn't exactly a harmful double standard, but I wonder why I have it. Off the top of my head I'll guess that I have less choice of otome to play because there are less otome out in English so I'll put up with more, while there are so many different anime and manga translated to English that I can afford to be choosy.

If it crosses some personal content lines I won't play—I am no good with gory images (descriptions are fine!). I also do not want to play a game where the MC faces sexism/misogyny, or anything that reads as too "serious real world issue in the media spotlight today".

If it has good self-insertion, tropes I love, an MC with a personality I want to see, or gameplay besides usual VN gameplay I'll be more likely to want to touch it.

For me, aesthetics play a huge role in VNs, so the artstyle would be the first dealbreaker. I'm honestly not much of a fan of the typical Otome game artstyle/character designs and often find them generic. On the other hand, once I stumble over a VN with a unique, strong art direction I'll instantly check it out.