Well there are some consistancies you can extrapulate. Most people who come and stay on these boards tend to think storylines are important. They also want to have enough playtime to be worth the money they spend and although the amount varies, its usually more than a couple hours for $40-50 or more. Most people prefer voiced content rather than unvoiced, higher quality artwork over lower, etc.
I wouldn’t be so sure about the “most” part. Besides, really, that doesn’t tell much, if anything. Storyline as important? What defines how good a storyline is, though? The plot, the characters, the writing? Just reading the previous comments about G-Senjou no Maou reveals us that people don’t put the same emphasis on storylines so “I prefer games with a good storyline” doesn’t help with defining whether someone would enjoy or not a particular game. High quality artwork? There again, a thousand people, a thousand colours, as proven by the “favourite artists” thread: sure, most people would say they prefer high quality to low quality artwork but when you come down to it, what they consider high or low quality artwork differs completely from one person to another. I may concede you the voiced vs. unvoiced part, though, being probably one of the few who consider that a good story should be unvoiced. If it’s well written enough, you don’t need the voice intonations to perceive the nuances of a character’s emotions; a voice only serves to hide the imperfections of a script.
I think voices can add an extra dimension to the experience - not all eroges simply uses voices to repeat the text that’s appearing in front of your face. Forest is the famous example, but Mashiroiro Symphony is another thing I’ve been playing lately that has characters speaking during narration. It creates a good effect because it shows what the protagonist (or current POV character) is thinking about at the time.
As a side note, they’re also useful in determining who is speaking, especially in NVL games. Did anyone else get lost in some of the conversations in Suigetsu for this exact reason? I know I sure did! (although I was a bit younger when I read it and my Japanese very undeveloped so it could just have been my inability to tell nuances in speaking styles)
About the only instance in which I oppose the voicing of an eroge is in the case where I played a non-voiced version of the eroge, imagined up a bunch of voices, and then later played the voiced version and they were so different I just couldn’t stand it - in these cases I have to mute the voices to be able to play said remake. I can’t specifically this having happened to me in eroge per se but I played a bit of Higurashi no Naku koro ni Matsuri (the PS2 port of Higurashi no Naku koro ni) and had to stop because the voices were just so weird to me.
Well, I don’t consider what I wrote as an universal truth; more like the opposite is a rarity. For my part, a good counterexample would be ??? where the French reading differs utterly from what is written!
That happens often with me, when I try to play a console port of an unvoiced PC game I enjoyed.
Interesting topic this one.
I don’t remember many eroges i played with empty-faced protagonists (maybe because the faced protagonists are that much easier to remember) but like Narg said sometimes we can have different approachs even with eyeless protagonists.
I remember a very good eyeless protagonist would be Kojiroh Amagi from the long series EVE BURST ERROR. Even thought you can’t see his eyes, he had voice and animated sequences.
Other thing what could happen is the protagonist has a face and eyes, but he is that kind of character who is allways with closed eyes, like Mitsune Konno (Kitsune) from the LOVE HINA Series.
In my opinion, empty-faced protags work well in dark eroge, and in your typical school romance game they look unnecessarily creepy.
By creepy, do you mean this?
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Man, it does feel a little creepy. =P
Okay, gotta go… prepare some pasta. (With mayo and soya sauce. 
)
Out of curiosity, what is the source of the picture Yuri?
Just curious, that’s all.
Well, in this particular case the creepiness is spoiled by the fact that the guy’s obviously embarrassed, red cheeks and all. :oops:
I don’t play much dark eroge, but I actually prefer it when an “evil” protagonist is empty-faced (or at least his eyes are covered by hair). It looks appropriate imo.