I didn’t dislike the story enough to stop listening and I may continue with it but it’s not great. I may just be repeating others with my review but here goes anyway. The characters don’t act in a realistic manner and many rpg elements would not make it past the first testing phase in a half decent game. It seems like everything is designed so the MC succeeds. And while that is the point of a story like this, that it is so obvious is the problem. He is not a natural leader but people line up to follow him. He is not particularly intelligent but he discovers game breaking exploits within minutes. He is not a very good fighter but survives every battle while fighting at the front.
Very few people seem to understand their world now follows game rules but luckily the MC does. And it is only by his knowledge that anyone will survive because nobody he comes across has any idea what is going on even after several weeks and our MC must explain it to them (except for Air Force personnel they got the game stuff). Though non of his great accomplishments are because of his gaming knowledge, nope they are all dumb luck (unfortunately the Air Force didn’t have this). Anyone who doesn’t want to talk with him and join almost immediately is a bad person who does bad thing and will need to be killed. This is about half the people he meets but luckily the area he is in is so depopulated he needs to travel hundreds of miles find survivors. This is odd to me as while I know Colorado isn’t the most populated place it seems like this area is already below the 10% of humanity allowed to live after only a few weeks. There hasn’t been a plague or nuclear Armageddon, just some 6 legged monster dogs, giant land octopuses and overly aggressive rats. Non all that difficult to kill with firearms. So why do towns of hundreds or thousands of people have dozens of survivors or non at all? Where are all the people?
The one this I dislike with the voice acting isn’t even a problem with the voice acting. It’s that the MC sounds like an nerdy socially awkward unconfident 16 year old. He does the voice very well. I just dislike the voice.
There is a lot to pick apart with this story but it would take so long and honestly most people who like these kinds of stories won’t care, after all this book has a 4.7/5 with over 2,500 reviews and has been out for several years. My biggest problem is not with the book, it is ok for what it is. My problem is people giving an average book a 5 star review. Amazon/audible should do something with their review system. 5 stars isn’t I liked this book. 5 stars is this book is great, amazing even and I think you and everybody should read it. This book is not 5 stars by any objective measure.