The GoW games are very good, and worth playing. It's not all over-the-top steroid rage.

Kratos really does have some of the Aristotelian qualities of a tragic Greek hero. His death is imminent, and he doesn't want to die, so he makes a bad deal to keep living. Then he gets drunk with power, and in one of those moments, inadvertantly kills his wife and child. At that point, the rage against the gods begins.

If nothing else, the level where he has to defend his family, and can hug them to transfer some of his life to them, shows that he isn't all blood and rage. Over time, characters (especially on the internet) just turn into one-dimensional exaggerations of themselves.