"I don't like it but i won't deny it a chance to exist and earn its right to it"
That being said, i always believed that (mindless) violence in games are an excellent way to let off some steam, relax and relive yourself from the daily stress and frustrations.
Be it graphical violence or figurative violence, it is a way to spend some extra "bad energy". Sometimes to calm down you feel the urge to do something wrong: break stuff, punch people, etc, and a punching bag just doesn't cut it (sometimes you even feel WORSE, because you end up feeling tired, frustrated and still powerless).
These "power feeling" are therapeutical IMO.
Hell, i play Dynasty Warriors! I kill 7k chinese soldiers per hour, and it's darn good fun.
That being said, this is one of two uses of violence in entretainment. The other is confronting you with it.
I strongly recommend you guys to try "Spec Ops: the line". While it's pretty meh as a game, it central idea and how the game delivers it is something amazing that should be seen more often.
It's a shooter, and shooting things are fun, but things start to add up and come back to bite you; you start as a generic soldier with the generic mission, enemy goons left and right, et cetera. But from time to time, you're confronted with the fact that these goons are not just "the enemy". What starts as killing them for being "the bad guys" starts to degrade into killing them for being "the opposition", them for survival and eventually because fighting and killing is all that's left to you.
And the game is pretty in-your-face about it. Eventually even loading screens starts to lose its moral compass and both mocks and soothes you fo you with phrases like "Are you feeling like a hero yet?" or "you're still a good person".
Check the spoilers for some examples (and yeah, spoilers of the game in the spoiler):
If you guys want spoilers, check my album of it on steam (yeah, i'm a screenshot freak and love taking shots of artwork and design material applied to the game, like loading screens, boards, specific buildings, etc. so there's a lot of similar images.)
http://steamcommunity.com/id/dukema...rt=oldestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid
Back on topic, i think in hatred case violence is a tool that makes the game works, but not move forward, just like in Mortal Kombat. People freaking out about are treating it like it's the "core" of the game or that it pushes something forward is absurd. Just like the game's whole idea is absurd. If you REALLY wants to extract a message FROM THE GAME ITSELF, think about it: no matter how much people you gun down, GOING ON A RAMPAGE CAN ONLY GET YOU ARRESTED OR KILLED, and there's no victory in death. not in a shooter set in a non-absurd world.
Spec Ops: the Line is a game where violence is important, Hatred is an isometric shooter with defenseless targets, JUST THAT. no plot, no agenda and no bullshit.
Don't make a minotaur out of every cow ok?