I've complained about it before, but Batman Arkham City goes so overboard with it's gritty setting that Batman's obstinate refusal to allow lethal force for any reason by anyone on anyone stops seeming heroic and starts being sociopathic. I feel funny mentioning this here, since most of the examples are about protagonists who kill too casualy. And indeed, that's a common problem. But damn it, Arkham City managed to get me cheering for a less moral hero.
The chatting you frequently overhear from the mooks are about how much they enjoy committing murder, torture and rape, or about how afraid they are of their bosses, who are even worse. And it's not just talk either, the mooks do enact everything on the doctors or political prisoners**, and the Joker infected a few thousand people with a deadly disease as a side plot to motivate Batman from finding the cure, all while they're in the prison. So, in the Gotham verse, imprisonment doesn't work. As was seen in the first game Arkham Asylum, therapy either results in jack-shit or in a dead therapist. So when Dr. Strange revealed his diabolical master scheme was to kill all the prisoners I found it pretty hard to argue with him. I'm not even in favor of capital punishment in the real world, but in the world DC and the developers of Arkham City created... well, you'd have to do something. And of the super-villains imprisoned in Arkham, Dr Freeze was the nice one, and he was perfectly willing to destroy the cure for thousands of people because Batman didn't agree to saving his wife fast enough.
**Most of whom are imprisoned by Dr Strange for no benefit to him whatsover. When I kept finding political prisoners who helped build the wall and control tower I assumed the mysterious Protocol 10 had something to do with a secret function of the builidings, and that the builders had been thrown in to ensure it's secrecy. Turns out, there's nothing special about the wall or the tower, and the only reason those prisoners are there is to have victims for the mooks, and possibly to try to make the player give two shits when Strange starts blowing the place up.
But the player isn't given any choice but to fight tooth and nail to stop it. And I just find it bizar that the whole story and setting seems to be trying to make you think about how far one should go to stop evil. Yet they don't give any answer more substantial than 'Batman doesn't allow it'. But what about the lives that could be sa-'Batman doesn't allow it'. But how can we morally justify- 'Batman doesn't allow it'. But if no other sollut-'Batman doesn't allow it'. But- 'Batman doesn't allow it, and he will monotonously drone on about not allowing it without ever explaining why'. At some point 'My mommy and daddy were killed, therefor no killing by anyone ever' just doesn't cut it anymore.
