I think what repulses them about PUA's is, primarily, that PUA's tend to be raging misogynists in addition to being sleazy, weird, and often pretty creepy.
There's an interesting theory that women fundamentally dislike PUA stuff, because it allows weaker, lower-status men to masquerade as higher-status men, thus allowing the potential for her to be fooled by a poser, and left with the offspring of a weaker mate, who may not be able to provide for them. In evolutionary human history, this could be fatal for the woman. So, women have an innate revulsion to the concept of men mimicking the behavior of higher-status men.
I think in reality, a man needs to put himself out there ie. "be in the game" in order to have options with women. Unless he is extremely high-status (celebrity) and has women chasing him as a natural byproduct of his status, a man needs to approach.
Approaching women in the appropriate times and places (side quests), versus approaching women as a life pursuit (main quest), is the key difference. Yes, the romance novel always has the brooding male who must be tamed by the female protagonist, but you also have the womanizer archetypes like Hank Moody from Californication who are also attractive to women by simply being adept at seducing them, and thus having abundant options -- pre-selection. At the very least, PUA's can convey abundance and pre-selection.
Nothing about some white dude moving to the Philippines to snag himself a "good bride" conveys that he's either the brooding man on a mission, or pre-selected. It's worse than being a PUA.