I have mixed feelings about VNs. Too many of them try and make the art and the story cover up obvious deficiencies in the gameplay department. This CAN work, but both art and story have to be pretty good or you just won't maintain the player's interest. Too much text and no player agency just makes me start clicking through as quickly as possible to get to the 'choices'; I'll often skip important details by accident simply because I get bored of reading inconsequential filler.
Then again there are others that play more like a point-and-click adventure that can be explored at will between cutscenes, where puzzles are usually based on being in the right place at the right time, finding - or more often purchasing - a specific object to give to a specific person or use in a specific place, by improving RPG-style statistics, or by picking the right dialog in a conversation with a particular NPC. These are my favoured kind of VN. A good sense of humour helps too - I'm not into angsty love stories.
There's also the ones that are more like a JRPG with lots of simplistic, stylised combat. Never been a fan of these. Far too often the solution to losing a fight is to go away and grind for levels, or find an enemy's weakness which is generally either painfully obvious, or painfully obtuse leading to a lot of trial and error. I'd leave these ones on the shelves for sure because they bore the tits off me, but I bet there's plenty of other people who would disagree, and it's definitely a step up from simple choose-your-own-adventure territory.
But this is all subjective and other people's experiences may vary. I'd still say though that if you are in any way unsure about your ability to write an engaging story, you should turn it into something other than a VN. VN's are easy to program, but if you're not an ace writer, it's going to suck.
Anyway, good luck, and let me know if you need any coding assistance!
