"Looking back, however, it’s not difficult to see the faults in Naughty Dog’s storytelling. It is derivative of a lot of post-apocalyptic/zombie fiction, but worse than that, it gives in to some of the worst habits of this genre.
But I still can’t deny the game’s strength. I’m going to break down a few of the issues I found, and then explain why I think Naughty Dog manages to overcome them." - JTM Games
It's built on a strong foundation of solid gameplay. It has characters you actually care about and a story that holds you all the way to the end. It does literally everything right.
The reason The Last of Us drew me in is because of the realistic dialogue and the deep and shockley dark gameplay.
Characters are extremely realistic. We as the player can relate to the characters. That's pretty hard thing to do.
Understatement
The character development, dialogue and story are Oscar worthy. The gameplay is also the best I've ever experienced.