1. Yes, the cover is far more graphic than anything you'll find in the actual game (as I already noted). This is the source of my confusion. In terms of the game art, you'd have seen the most offensive thing it had to offer before you even made the purchase.

2. As noted, if you want interesting, complicated characters, play Planescape. I don't think the men in Divine Divinity are any more interesting than the women.

3. The phrase you quoted as having offended you "voice actresses were purring about how they were "better than men." " Of all the things for a self proclaimed feminist to get upset about, that's not one I would have expected.
Some women might find "musclebound, half naked male heroes" that are associated ith "heroism and physical strength" attractive. They are probably the female equivilent of the type of males that find "chain mail bikini clad warrior princesses who proclaim themselves to be better than men" attractive.

I don't find that so surprising because it kind of ridicules feminism and reduces it to the stereotype common among some males that feminists are just man-haters who are full of themselves and aim for female supremacy, which is a pretty shallow view. Besides, as the OP already pointed out, men seldom compare themselves to women in order to define themselves, so why should women define themselves by comparisons to men. Imagine being female was treated as the norm and you would have to justify yourself for being the other, the exotic male who is not a woman, but still not worth any less than a woman! ;)

I found it ironic because many feminists seem to spend a lot of their time and energy comparing themselves to the opposite sex, with the given phrase being a clichéd stereotypical example. If you think that's a shallow view, so be it. :(

There's a difference between the in-game art of the main character and the box art. The main character is something you'll be staring throughout the whole game, and it's supposed to be representing you in the game world.

I'm telling you, as a woman: no, they are not.

Of course we are all individuals and I'm sure there are women who find that sort of thing attractive. However, I have personally never met one. Most women are not attracted to that sort of men at all. There was once made an actual study on this, and it concluded women are usually more attracted to more feminine-looking men rather than masculine-looking ones. Chicks dig Legolas, not Boromir. ;-)

Yeah, my point was, I don't know any guys who find women wearing chainmail bikinis proclaiming themselves to be better than men attractive either.

To say that these female characters are designed for men to "oogle" as the OP put it is as silly as saying that the dude in a skirt is there for women to oogle. The game has crap graphics and there are far better things for one to oogle out there if oogling is your sort of thing.

The game is silly and clichéd, but so is getting upset about it.

I'd be willing to bet the chainmail bikinini babes do exist because the game devs think their audience (young males) likes that sort of thing. The question of whether or not they actually do is a different matter altogether.

I think case Mass Effect is sort of interesting. For ME2, they created a new love interest who had the "assets" they prominently displayed in advertising, the game box, and the game cut-scenes. Instead of her, the most popular love interest by far became an alien with small breasts, chicken feet, and a suit that covers her entire body. Methinks they are thinking this whole "sex sells" approach a bit too simplistically.

If your choice for your in-game avatar were either Justin Bieber or Robert Pattison wearing a suggestive codpiece, you wouldn't be thrilled either. ;-)

Justin Bieber, Robert Pattison, or a dude in a skirt that looks like he might be on steroids........ decisions decisions.

Seriously, it's not a great game for deep characters, male or female.

quote fail. I didn't say that :P

Might also be a display of lacking imagination; it's a common fantasy trope and maybe they just adopted it because they didn't know what else to do with female characters. The male-only intro video shows how much they were interested in the gender choice. ;)

It's only an RPG in the sense that The Legend of Zelda is an RPG (and it's not on sale), but Beyond Good & Evil has one of the most humane, most humbly presented female protagonists of all time. Throughout the game, Jade is a constant force for good (running a children's orphanage, being a research photographer for a wildlife preservation, saving the world from a tyrannical government entity), while her sexuality is never hidden or exploited.

Again, the archtypical barbarian is a male power fantasy, the archtypical chainmail bikini female is a male sexual fantasy. The reverse is not necessarily true due to the aformentioned traits such images are connected to, which are not the same between the two. Reading comprehension please, you ignored pretty much all of my argument.

:-) The research itself didn't include any LotR movie actors, but have you ever seen which character really moves the merchandise? I can still find Legolas posters in stores, next to the boy band ones...

(I'm more of a Faramir kinda girl myself. :-P)

I don't know of a specific research comparing Bloom and Bean, but in general faces are being rated the more attractive the less distinctive features they have. The most popular study in that regard gave people several pictures of faces to rate. One of the pictures was a morphed "average" of all other faces, and that face consistently received the highest scores.

Personally, I think that it would be silly to try to break such research down to an individual level. Partner preference is a highly individual variable, and it has so much variance _within_ the groups of both sexes that it simply doesn't make sense to calculate averages or rankings. Every time I hear something like "Men want ..." or "Women prefer ...", it makes me cringe a little. ;)

I once had a hilarious situation with my very first girlfriend - she had shaved her arms and legs because she believed that "men like this", but to me this made her skin feel like rubber or latex (i.e. somehow artificial and not attractive at all), and I actually do find body hair attractive. It took us a while to sort that out. It's an example of someone jumping through totally unnecessary hoops to match some perceived "ideal" of attractivity, when simply being oneself would have done the job much better.

Part of the male 'power fantasy' is that we have to feel this character is seductive to women. You're right that it isn't always (or even generally) the case in reality, but expect to find a lot of people who would ignore any evidence or argument to the contrary.