Thank you, Eirene, for going so in depth with that response. i'll bet that's a snippet of the experience but you definitely summed it up nicely to give me the gist.
Thank you Alexia and Milan for responding. I understand better now. Still disturbed by what is in that game and fortunately, never had the inclination to play it.
SWTOR may not be your kind of thing, and I could certainly offer some criticisms of it (nothing is perfect.)
I would be hesitant to leave you with the impression that what was said in this thread was representative of the game's stories, though. They are weak compared to a dedicated SP RPG like DA:O, to be sure, but what I read in here does not accurately describe the SWTOR that I've been playing. The dark side choices, in my experience so far, are no more disturbing than the renegade choices in Mass Effect, or the "edgy" choices in Dragon Age.
It can even be enjoyed as a largely single-player experience, which I have found quite rewarding, since I usually don't want to have to try and play with random strangers to advance my quest lines.
It's clunky, and I'd hesitate to recommend it to someone who wasn't inherently interested, but you can try it for free (well... at the cost of some significant bandwidth, as the game's hard drive storage requirements are quite massive now.)