I don't like criminals though there are one or two in my game. I really play with a reality-based rotation. I have one vampire and I got ROM but actually so I could play it as a Celtic village. (It has one household with a grandmother, her rebellious daughter and the daughter's toddler who moved back into Glimmerbrook after a partying youth.)
I like to develop my characters and then see how things play out for them. I think calling it a soap opera is a bit simplistic because by that argument, Jane Austen's work or that of Charles Dickens is a soap opera. There just is "drama" at times so that it's not all happy family play, but there are a lot of happy families.
I'm kind of seeing how different characters have different impacts on each other. I wouldn't mind more centralized stories or themes that I can interpret how I want to. In that sense, I was fine with StrangerVille and I did get Eco-Living. I just say that if I want to change something in the game, I'll change it. If I want to incorporate it into my game then I will.