So a list of complaints and things to change, if anyone's curious. I'm probably forgetting a lot of things, but here's what's on the top of my head:
1. "I hate Li"
Really hard to get motivated to work on changing this one because I don't agree with it, but I've heard it a lot... so I'm trying to think of ways to make Li more likable for the people that hate him.
One idea I had was to find wrecks of human tech lying around, and have Li upgrade his weapon when you find them. There could be maybe 3 places, and at the end he could have a more powerful shot. But that means asking Derek for more graphics, and implementing a bunch of things.
We also planned to have areas where Li would go off and investigate things, based on his own curiosity. This seems subtle, hard to implement and I'm dubious if it would make an impact now.
Li has a number of emotional reactions expressed through facial changes. However, people don't notice because his head is really small. I was considering adding sounds to him at one point - so he could react to stuff going on. This would probably only anger the people who already don't like Li, though. (since he'd be having more of a presence)
Li taking damage is another option - he could take a few hits, and then get stunned. Problems: he might block enough shots to dramatically shift the balance of the game, and if he got knocked out, it would probably annoy the people that already find him annoying.
2. "Menu screens suck"
Trying to make it more obvious which menu screen you're on. (some people said they didn't play the game more than 5 minutes, because they opened the menu screen and then got extremely upset and quit... don't really understand that, but there it is) It would be nice to figure out a way to switch between screens more obviously. Some people don't notice the small icons right away. Not sure how that would fit in visually yet... trying to figure it out on my own.
3. "I hate dragging things"
People want to click once to auto-cook any item. I feel like this would be difficult to implement (would you really want to make a soup with swordfish steak, if that was the only meat left?) and would make cooking way to fast/easy. But somebody will inevitably complain about it, so I'm trying to think of something.
4. "Map System sucks"
Made it so you can click on previous areas to see your progress in them. Made it so you can see the names of the areas by hovering over them, as well as the name of the area you're in.
5. "The story is too obvious!"
Someone thought the game's story was purely about "gods being bad". They didn't think there was enough mystery. I feel like there's enough mystery in each culture to write a novel about each, but then again I'm me. Hard to relate to this complaint, and not sure if there's much to be done about it.
6. "The story is too vague!"
Some people think the story should explain everything when you reach the end. I feel like the ending provides enough clues to realize what is going on without actually laying it out in specifics. There is also the bigger story arc that would be developed in other games, if they were ever made. The main (non-secret) ending probably won't change much... for some reason I like it.
7. "Mia plotline is stupid"
Also disagree, not sure what to do to improve it. We originally had plans to insert scenes when Mia meets up with Naija after each area. She still meets up with Naija, but nothing is said and no events occur, which were originally planned. I guess I could try adding those in now, but I have a feeling it would piss off the "too much story" people. Hmm.
8. "I'm lost, I don't know where to go"
Also added map beacon hints. There are things in the world now that you can find that will add a beacon on the world map where the boss location for Energy Temple, Forest, Mithalas and Li are. Hopefully the people who like exploring won't be too annoyed by this.
crosses fingers9. "I'm not going to buy the game unless it has widescreen support"
Oh man, we've both spent so much time implementing this. I really hope people enjoy it.
10. "I'm not going to buy this game unless its for the Mac"
Still working on it. Part of the length of time is that I'm trying to address the concerns before releasing the Mac version.
11. "I'm not going to buy this game unless its for Linux"
A possibility. Hard to get motivated to work on.
12. "Food Sort"
A button that would sort your food in various ways. I don't really understand how its going to work out. I feel like it would ruin some of the mystery of the food system. (by making it really obvious which items are healing and which have other strange effects) I've implemented a version of it, but I still don't really get it game play wise.
13. "This game is teh gay" - GameTrailers.com
err... can't do much about that at this point

14. "Music is generic / throwaway / by the book" - IGN
Alright... guess I could rewrite all the music? ... Naw.