And it basically boils down to three options:

1. Keep going as-is (obviously very undesirable).
2. Communicate your suggestions/criticisms on how to improve the game to him.
3. Stop playing his game altogether.


Option 1 is pretty much out of the question. You can't have four or five people spending hours doing something they're not enjoyable because they're unwilling to criticize a friend.

Option 3 is pretty drastic, and is fraught with danger: how do you back out of the game entirely without insulting him, without endangering the game you're running, and without running into the same problem in the future? Odds are he'll realize that it's somehow a criticism of him, but it will be a vague and undefined one. It also feels like a passive-aggressive way of fixing the problem to me.

Option 2 seems like the clear choice. Unless he is REALLY sensitive, he'll get over it eventually, and it might do him some good. I don't know the guy though, so I really can't say for sure.