They get slightly less nasty further on, but they're still a bit Mafia, which kind of makes sense.
I really must get on with the Dark Brotherhood quests, though they also seem even more of a bunch of psychos than in Oblivion and I'm not sure I like hanging around with them. I'm trying to get through some of the other missions I've picked up first, though. My journal's quest list is ridiculously long. Some people have probably been standing in a temple waiting for me to come and meet them for months now.
I finished one quest, that I vaguely remember picking up, which ended up with me meeting a chatty Daedra who was just after a laugh. I have no idea what it was about. I wouldn't have minded, but it involved unexpectedly teleporting me out of a dungeon somewhere and then putting me back somewhere completely different. I can't remember where the dungeon was, which is a bit irritating as I'd only got halfway through it.
I did the quest in the abandoned house in Markarth, which ended up with me having to beat a defenceless priest to death with a scary-looking spiked mace. I felt awful doing it :( And I'm not even trained in one-handed weapons, so the reward wasn't even useful.
Big spoilers for anyone who's not done the Dark Brotherhood yet.
Okay, so i've murdered the Emperor. Awesome. Something this big must have ramifications for the world. There's a civil war going on, with Skyrim tyring to free itself from the clutches of the empire, so having the emperor be murdered should have some impact on that storyline. It should at least be mentioned next time i vist Jarl Stormcloak to ask which bunch of imperials he wants me to kill next. Failing that, it should at least be mentioned in conversation around town.
No. Absolutely nobody gives the slightest fuck that the fucking emperor has just been fucking murdered by the fucking dark brotherhood. Nobody.
Fair enough, I'd read some articles about it being really buggy, Jim Rosignol on Rock Paper Shotgun absolutely slated the UI too, still can't wait to play it!
The GUI is annoying, especially trying to find out what poisons etc. are affecting you, but the majority of your time in the game is spent doing stuff in the world, not the menus, so it doesn't really affect the enjoyment a whole lot. The best way to cope, I found, is to not bother with the mouse - stick to WASD to navigate the menu.
Ok, well, "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" was shit. All I had to do was kill everyone in one sanctuary. Which was easy. And... that's it. Despite there clearly being other sanctuaries which I've found :?