I personally love dating sims in a fantasy, mystery or modern setting. I think a dating sim is a lot more interesting if it has a really intriguing plot along with character interactions, because some of them out there are lacking an interesting plot, and those tend to fall flat for me.

That being said, wouldn't it be plausible to mix genres and/or dating sim games? Because a male dating sim and a female dating sim are completely different (Or I think they are, I've only really played the ones made for girls) so it would make sense for me if there was some sort of merge. One of my favorite dating sim creator has a tendency to cross over universes, like they have some sort of connection between characters of a different dating sim and I always love the little references that get thrown in.