Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm dead-against the game and that I feel that strongly about it. I'm just saying that I personally thinking shooting a few people (which you can do in just about every other game) is a stress-relief device, whereas if you choose to go further, then that's beyond decency.
Like I say, if you go and see a film, it doesn't matter what is in it, as long as it's a good story - and yet, looking around the GTA4 fans and forums, it seems to be all about "let us do this, let us kill them, imprison them" rather than saying "just make GTA4 a good game". It could have the best gameplay in the world but if you can't chop people into bits and watch the blood ooze out then there will be people who are disappointed, and that just sickens me. You don't go and watch a film to see how many people get killed (well, the more moronic people do, as demonstrated perfectly in The League Of Gentleman's video rental guys - "how many killin's?") - you watch it for the story. Should it not be the same with games?
I just hope GTA put style and gameplay before shock value, that's all.