One thing must be said about GTA IV's less than expected success (*): even if it's well done, a good game, it's the 4th of its series, and this is true also for MGS4, but while very good stealth games aren't so common and so every good new title is heartily welcome from all genre's fan, nobody can deny that much of GTA series' charm comes from the thrill of breaking the rules, and about this we had the previous GTA titles, Kingpin, Postal 1 and 2, Bully, Manhunt and countless others, while even most of the best RPGs may be played as a ruthless character, so this thrill is quite watered down, paradoxically more in good games that rely less on it and are surpassed by chep game that rely more on easy shock: what happens after is that more mature gamer risk to underrate a violent but good game, while thrillseekers will snub the good violent game because it hasn't enough cheap violence for their tastes.
(*) Hey, it's very successful, but lots of people expected even more success for it and less success than it's having since its launch for MGS4, so here I'm not talking about absolute success, but about GTA4 and MGS4 success in relation to each other and to other games.
