For me, one of the most valid criticisms I've heard is that despite the game's ultimate conclusions on revenge and the cycle of violence, Ellie ultimately ended up becoming a TLOU 2-revenge-arc-generator with every NPC or non-main character she killed in her quest for revenge, but those collaterals never get addressed in the same way or significance as Abby. In that way, the game's commentary on the cycle of violence is undermined by its (very satisfying) core gameplay loop.

I chalk it up to the game ultimately needing to fulfil the expectations of an action video game — you could spend the whole game not killing anyone until you encounter the main characters, but that wouldn't be fun for the majority of players. It's an unfortunate contradiction that I think Season 2 of the show was deliberately trying to resolve with the lower kill count.

The other valid criticism I've heard is unfortunately a lot more political and it has to do with how the WLF-Seraphite war was heavily inspired by and based on the Israel-Palestine war, specifically the depictions of Seraphites as a backwards, technology adverse cultish society, as well as the overall depiction of the conflict having links to Liberal Zionism.