
Personally, I'd be the happiest with a balanced approach - I'm not into playing a total sociopath who has no respect for their crew, though playing someone more ruthless than your average game protagonist is refreshing. The Boss is definitely softer in SR3, but s/he regains some of the old personality back in SR4.

It’s the perfect time to look back at the best mods the Saints Row series has had, starting with a Saints Row 2 megamod.

To celebrate the series’ release, GOG is offering Saints Row 2 as a free download for the next 48 hours. Some people really liked it and some people really, really hated it because the player's really mean." GOG.com has announced that the Saints Row series is now available on the digital distribution platform, DRM-free along with GOG Connect compatibility. The player is kind of a sociopathic guy, and I don't know if that really reads well. It's one of those things that got totally confusing where this is kind of fun and then this was a really, really serious. "At the end of the day, Saints Row is not the place for a message piece. When you go and kill this other guy's girlfriend, realize that you're doing the thing you hate these other guys for, and we'll do this big like message thing about violence." You're the aggressor, the person doing all of the nasty things, in the same way that people do nasty things to the player in the other arcs. "Each of the three gang stories had a tonally a different feel and one of the things that we were going for was that the Brotherhood arc was going to be really dark," Jaros said. Jaros said that they tried to deliver a concrete message on the endless cycle of gang violence in Saints Row 2 but that may have been muddied by the silly details.

They consciously softened The Boss' personality because the message they were trying to send did not come through, there's a really good interview with Steve Jaros that mentions it.
