If my main character isn't a fat linguini gobbling slob with a pinky ring i ain't buyin

Can't say I really pay attention to my avatar in games much. It always cracks me up when people are all "if a character ain't such andsuch I can't relate to them and enjoy the game". Wtf wahy does a character have to be white, or female or blue haired in order to "relate"?

If the character does what I want it to do via the inputs given through the pad, that's good enough for me!

The explosions look out of place, but that is a different topic altogether.

Mafia is exclusively Italian criminal syndicate . So much so that a non-italian person would never be accepted as an official member of the mafia. So by defenition of a mafia, a black person couldnt be a part of it. He could be a part of some other criminal organisation sure, but not the Mafia. Thats the first problem.

The second problem is that you are not even playing as a mafia member at all, which runs totally against the previous games in the series. You are playing as some self righteous dude taking out the actual mobsters, which is not what the franchise is about. 

So because of this, I can see why people might be upset at the concept of this game

They could have easily avoided this asinine controversy by giving the game a new, unique title, rather than just slapping the 'mafia' license on it for brand recognition, but that would require the producers to not be sniveling cowards utterly dependant on blockbuster titles to keep their heads above water because they have no idea how to budget.  Yeah, technically the term can apply to any organized crime syndicate but you ask the average person the first thing they think of when they hear mafia nine times out of ten they're gonna spout some goodfellasesque nonsense.

Mafia: A mafia is a type of organized crime syndicate whose primary activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. Secondary activities may be practiced such as drug-trafficking, loan sharking and fraud.

The word is just a description of the organized group. It could be called gangsters, mob, etc...

What you're thinking is Cosa Nostra...

The word originated in Sicily and is almost always used to describe italian or italian-american crime syndicate when used alone. There can be other crime organisations with different ethnical backgrounds, but strictly and traditionally speaking, Mafia is italian 

There are Mexican mafia, Russian mafia, etc...

Mafia comes from a word that doesn't even relate to crime. You guys should stop this non sense already.

Americans in the 70's and 80's weren't even calling gangsters (any ethnicity) Mafias but the Mob.

Mafia is always associated with the italian mob in america. When someone says that mafia movie was good, it's not about the bloods or cripes (however it's spelled). If the game takes place in america, it's about the italian mafia.

Let me go watch Training Day and listen to what they call Russian Mafia.

That's my point, you have to say "russian" mafia so others get which one you mean. Plain ol' mafia only means "italian mafia".