A) I don't hate mainstream stuff, I hate the fact that mainstream works are the only ones that get any sensible recognition, with people not willing to explore more around, either out of fear of wasting time or lack of interest. All of this is fair, but it is my personal grievance.
B) I barely read any translated VNs, simply because my interest lies elsewhere (which led me to discovering some genuinely amazing things). And the things that I did read is the mainstream stuff that everyone else did at this point. For this reason I am not quite qualified to recommend many translated works since I do not know of their quality.
It also vastly depends on what kind of work you are looking for, length and genre wise. I simply can't know what you will or will not like and since they are a massive time investment to begin with, even the shortest.

That being said, if you like comedy oriented works with light drama and profound messages about found family and friendship bonds, HARUKAZE/TokyoToon works, such as "Marco and the galaxy dragon" and "Noratoto" are a great choice.
After reading "everlasting flowers" by sprite I can firmly recommend it as a work that tackles topics of social anxiety, feelings of isolation and hedgehog dilemma.
If you fine with need to deal with technical limitations and issues, picking up fan translation for Amagami is not a bad idea if you want to have some experience with critically acclaimed dating simulator.
Works by former minori like "ef - a fairy tale of two" and "eden*" are great examples in bittersweet drama field, which showcase the beauty of ever so fragile life.
More on the topic of beautiful fragile life - one of my most favourites is "Tomoyo After - it's a wonderful life". Really underappreciated work of visual arts, which I believe deserves more recognition. Maybe a little bit too honest in what it tries to convey, but there is a sincere positivity behind the gloom in it.
I am currently still in the middle of reading it, but "Usonatsu" by lycoris is an interesting romance story with premise built on conflicting emotions and feelings of 'love'.
ISLAND - is a mix of a mystery VN about defying own destiny combined with soft science fiction as a secondary element, good work in case if you like to theorise and rattle your brain a little.
As much as I don't like SciAdv as a collective work, each individual entry is a good entertainment piece in their own right. Chaos series being more on the melancholic side, while rest on more cheerful facet. Decent reads maybe outside of always shittily made flag systems for routes.
While I have not read "Amanatsu" yet, I am confident in quality of AzarashiSoft games which they established with their approach to creating pure love stories with emotional touch which leaves you invested in its soothing and calming sweet embrace.
Recently there was an official (re?)release of doujin "Nagi no Koi", which looks pretty interesting, have not tried it yet, but I think showing some help and recognition to small creators is a nice thing to try and do, so yeah.
As much as I would want to recommend "KimiNozo" this "enhanced edition" is a scam not worth money they asking for it, starting with outrageous crowdfunding campaign to the end product price for the kind of quality it is. Which is a shame, but at this point I would recommend you to watch anime instead, ot conveys idea well enough, even if some anime original liberties.
Grisaia is good enough as a action spy flic, which kind of fumbles the bag by its final entry. No clue about phantom trigger outside of that it is the same spy action flic.
I read "Flowers" by innogrey for about an hour and can testify for its atmosphere at the very least. It got that feeling if you know what I mean.
That's pretty much it for now, at least from the top of my head, so here you have it.
Some of my friends are avid qurippo fans so nukitashi is a good choice I can trust them on, being a more or less social commentary on modern world combined uniquely with adult sense of humour and topics.
Will repeat myself a little and say that I don't particularly hate any "mainstream" eroge, I just really wish people would explore more, because there are definitely hidden gems just for you about which you don't know.
I do voice my dislike of publisher practices though, that much is true.
Also, go try out 428 - shibuya scramble, it's insanely funny and good.

I will entertain the message and explain what exactly is wrong with ML in general, outside of starting with lazy interpretation of romcom tropes, shitty "plot relevant" lacrosse foreshadowing and finishing with story which doesn't respect or cares for its characters and only works in retrospect after a potential sequel which nobody knows if it will even come out at this point or not.
MLA is quite frankly a preaching story, not one to immerse you as an observer of the world, but the one to have an equivalent of your drunken uncle reading you life morals on how to live your life while he downs third bottle of whiskey with his alcoholic gut out. He thinks you are stupid, both intellectually and emotionally, that's why he constantly repeats the same thing over and over your head, while telling you great stories of his ww2 adventures of valor, riding on M4 Sherman, which are somewhat interesting and sometimes admirable, until he goes back to telling you that you are a dumbass brat who wastes his life. He goes in this circle for about 90 hours until he passes out, ultimately leaving you with nothing, but his moral code which he drilled into your brain so many times you can't count using all your fingers.
MLA doesn't respect its cast, because you quite literally end up where you started with only exception that everyone is happy and Main Loser gets extra girl to bang. Entire adventure is reduced to zero while it tries to trick you with false narrative that it's all worth it because it was all about "the friends we lost along the way on this journey". Shit of the fattest bull on the stick. Development? Gone. Impact? Reduced for shitty melancholic episodes for aforementioned dead sequel.
It's non-committal in everything outside its moral preaching and centrist political talks (which still manages to lean into that one ugly side thanks to nationalist Japanese writer), abuses nostalgia and hides its shallowness in mostly poorly directed spectacle with thoughtless direction in regards to any move. Every shitty vector animation it got could be changed to any random alternative and nothing would change, because there is no vision behind any of the movement outside of being, well, random, which fits the setting I guess.
I am still baffled by the words of one of the delusional fans unironically saying that Mahoyo, the fucking Mahoyo by type-moon as one of the visually beautifully done works, man, got worse production than shitty schwarzesmarken models which are slapped on screen and moved around like kid playing with their toy cars. Insane to the core.
It may have interesting moments untill you realise that those moments are lifted from something else. The whole orbital drop being a suicide mission from macross 7 is one hell of a realisation.
Anyway, I could be rambling about this for hours, but it is pointless and person behind this works is such an annoying sleazy twat that he counts as a personal enemy at this point.
Good for you if you like it, though. I simply grew out of it, because it never respected me or my time to begin with.

Outside of simply having opinions, some people voice their discomfort with general system mechanics (I may agree with some of it) being overtunned, people also complain about something outright ridiculous like "dwindling playerbase of less than 500 players" in a game with a crossplay, almost like they are expecting pool equal to street fighter or tekken, which would never happen in current competetive market without some miracle.
Some are still grieving vanilla versus players who keep insisting how the game got ruined or something (this one deserves entire different post to dissect all together). Sometimes it's about lack of certain features which a present in other games and so on and so on.
What needs to be noted is that this mixed result comes from 66% of 48 reviews being positive, which is relatively smaller poll size, so it can look more skewed.
But yeah, just like in anything else, there is something worth to criticise with this game too.

Funny answer - because beatles weren't that good to warrant a sequel.
Real answer- because not in a single side route, on my memory, they address any of the issues that started in those relationships. From the quite obvious cases like sexual assault just getting brushed away, or the whole multiple mental manipulations by Chiaki, or Koharu existing.
Side routes are an addendum to the main 3 characters, which is fine for symbolism, but also leaves you wondering if Maruto decided that the resolutions enough to justify relationships which are built on extremely questionable grounds (suspension of disbelief, I know).
Plus the whole Kazusa's true ending ends up with couple not living down their "betrayal" which is presented almost like a form of PTSD, to the point it becomes so god damn humorous that even in the "happy" ending they are not happy at all, apparently, since they have this little devil sitting on their shoulder everytime they have sex or something. Obviously it is open ended and is hinted towards the idea that they can be friends, but it's just funny that the entire relationship is 1 step away from mental breakdown like that, filled with depression, regrets and outright obsession towards the central figure in the story.