She really doesn't.
1- She does look realistic,
2 - When you're making an unrealistic character you don't make someone beautiful you create the impression of beauty and people fill in the blanks with their mind, it's why cartoon women are so attractive. When you accurately try to recreate a woman you can either give her a heart shaped face and a cute nose or put up with people debating how attractive she is.
And all those women you find attractive don't get judged by you taking a random close up picture of their face and scrutinizing it for five minutes, you see all of them in person.
1- Mhh, she gives exactly the same vibe. she really doesn't for you. She does enough for me and by far personally. I immediately thought Lara croft. i've seen the same thoughts from other posters. You disagree, well, that's fine by me. But she doesn't stand out alone as far as i am concerned, like for example the female protagonist of Remember me or Miror eyes. This ponytail from Lara was really iconic from the last game, they really didn't need to do something close for the fem/ Ryder. They certainly could have chosen something else. But then, i'm not really disappointed, because I'm going to play a CC Ryder.
2 - I didn't need more than a single glance in one second to immediately think that that Asari wasn't attractive. I don't know about you, but I don't scrutinize for fives minutes a picture to know or to be aware of if a female character is attractive or not to me. it comes immediately and automatically. I see an attractive woman or a female character, my body reacts alone without my brain ordering me anything. The only thing that is stated is " SHE IS HOT. " Feminine and elegant faces have particularly big effects on me in real life for example. And when I say feminine faces, I don't mean makeup, I mean the features and the alchemy that automatically occurs on me, making me blush or fascinated within the minute. Exactly the same as some masculine faces can have immediate and big effects on gay men and straight women.
I don't think anyone needed more than a few seconds to have an opinion. I'm also pretty sure that seeing the trailer was enough. Do you need yourself 5 minutes, scrutinizing a character to know if you find him / her someone attractive ? There are some times where a character can grow on me, but most of time, attractiveness hits me immediately. Did I need five minutes to find Liara attractive the first time i met her in the game wiithout never having seen her before ? Did I need to scrutinize Vivienne with the first picture of her ? Not at all. And not even for a single female character. I don't decide, it happens. So it has nothing to do with scrutinizing a picture in my opinion.
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Also, on internet, no matter the popularity of any Li in any game, there will be always people disagreeing over tastes, so I'm not sure that people debating over how attractive a character is, is really a good point about realism. Having flaws in a face can be pretty much one of the only objective facts that can be called " realistic ". But then, you can have a very pretty face, with minor flaws, still seen by most as very hot. Again, the fact that there isn't much debate over a character is hardly a sign that it isn't realistic.
There isn't debate around Cullen attractiveness, and yet, i'd call him realistic personally. I've seen men who are that hot in real life. A celibrity that comes to my mind, Dean Winchester, or Ian Somerholder. There is no debate around them.
Like i said, i'm fine with any design, but i won't agree with the idea that realistic face =/ hot face, popular, judged attractive by most.