I thought I'd put in my two cents since I seem to have a more unique stand point on all of this, having lived in Russia earlier in my life, and having lived in the good old U.S of A for the last 10 and 1/2 years or so.
Firstly, I can't remember who, but earlier in this thread someone posed the question "Have the Russians ever been portrayed as the 'good guys'?" Well.. blatantly, yes: Try Close Combat 3 The Russian Front, or any number of the excellent (but old) flight sims released by Microprose, such as MiG 29.
Following this same line of thinking.. having one side portrayed as dastardly and evil doesn't disturb me in the least (that is until the designers cross what to me is a politically incorrect border line, where the dastardly and evil side is also portrayed as stupid and naive, i.e. horrible russian accents from the evil doers who also happen to be doing some pretty nasty things, further example - A section from Bill Nye the Science Guy in which a Russian engineer with a horrible accent is shown foolishly setting of a nuclear weapon on accident). After all, its all in good fun: I find no problem whatsoever in shooting at americans/russians/whatever nationality in a game because in the end its only a game, an escape from reality (even if its a sim) and really nothing beyond that.
So anyway, play nice.
