I really liked the premise and the genre savvyness was a lot of fun for a while. The book never grew past its first few chapters of premise though and the plot just kind of wandered around. There were also many poorly written lines of awkward dialogue and repetitive word choices. The main character had some fun monologues but they were drastically overused until they became boring and lost their punch.
Spoiler below
The real killer for me was a minor twist about half way through the book. A large portion of the story was spent with the main character emphasizing the difference between evil and villainy. He clarified that he was a villain and wanted to do what was best for him, he was amoral and a dick but was not Evil. He took care of his followers. He generally had a positive effect on the world at large as long as he found a way to get a slice of everyone’s prosperity. He also refrained from murder except when necessary and didn’t enjoy it. Through the book he slowly learns the magic of friendship too and starts to grow close with his allies.
Then he randomly kills a loyal follower in a torturous manner and laughs about how much he enjoys it. He does this because one of his friends loves the follower and he feels it will encourage them to fight harder if they have a tragic death to spur them on. What?! He even takes great care to mind control everyone involved to frame an appropriate enemy. There is no reason he couldn’t have simply hid his follower and done the same plan without actually killing them.
Then the book moved on like this hasn’t happened. The main character continues to consider himself a non-evil person and later weighs if beating the main villain is worth how many people have to die to help him as though we are supposed to think he cares about that. Also right after the gratuitous murder of an innocent and assassination of the main characters morals by the author, there is then an incredibly graphic and out of place sex scene. It’s the only part in the book like it. I guess the MC gets rewarded with sexy sex describing all the good bits and penis fondling for his deeds.
It was tough to even finish the book after that. Especially with the aforementioned monologues having long since grown old and the main character’s luck having been proven sufficient to overcome any problem. Hell even the final battle was just the MC walking towards someone shooting at him and trusting luck to make every bullet miss.