The big thing about the GTA series is that it's all very tongue in cheek, with many parodies of real life things...
Back in the day (the late 90's and early 2000's in this case
), i had a pretty similar view of the series overall as you (that it was too amoral/too crime based for my liking), then i got GTA Vice City in 2002 and saw what all the fuss was about and i played every main GTA game since (as well as the PSP exclusive titles)...
Indeed while the GTA games in general have a lot you can do outside of their generally crime based stories, driving cars, flying aircraft, walking, cycling, running around, skydiving and in particular in GTA V, playing golf, tennis and listening to a varied sound track etc, it's hard to make a massive amount of money without doing the story missions, though it's certainly possible to make money 99% legally, once you "borrow" the likes of a Taxi in pretty much every GTA game i've played, ambulances and fire engines in some entries in the series, you can certainly make money doing good things.
Even among the story missions, while indeed many see you robbing bank and shooting at people etc, many other see you doing totally innocent and helpful things, though you might have to play though several "bad" missions to get to the "nice" ones.
In general though, there's a lot of choice in how you complete even the criminal based missions, you can go around shoot every one in sight or only shoot at people you've no other option to.
Indeed, while the earlier GTA games were very tongue, with GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas being still very fun and playable and in particular of those, Vice City is my personal favourite - it's set in the 80's and is possibly the most comical, most not to be taken seriously game in the series, and like basically all GTA game has a great soundtrack, but 80's music is one of my favourite periods and a highlight for the series as a whole...
On realism then, GTA IV has been the most realistic entry in the series to date, which is both good and bad, if you want to play it cleanly.
It has the most realistic driving in the series, with cars having a real sense of weight to them and they're a lot harder to brake from high speed and to throw around corners than previous entries in the series.
Something i really liked, that many games don't do, is clearly show you if you've only wounded someone or actually killed them, in particular shooting police officers in the arms will make them drop their guns, in the legs will see them slump down and eventual give up fighting you and limp or crawl to safety, while fist fights will only see people go down, clearly still alive, possibly to be healed by ambulance personnel, generally characters are only killed if you shoot them in the head, cheat, run them over or blow them up etc...
While many of the early missions see you driving a taxi, before someone tries to kill you, dragging your character back into a (mostly) bad lifestyle
But GTA V gave us more of a middle ground between the more arcadey comedic older games and the more realistic GTA IV.
Car handling is nice but more arcadey than in IV, but in particular, V threw away, IV's "lets's clearly show when a character is alive or dead" animations, where again, like in many other games, hitting people always kills them eventually (not that constantly hitting someone in real life does them any good, but it's nice when a game recognises your choice not to kill, unless REALLY forced to
).
Police officers, then while sure you can bring them down with shots to the legs, won't ever stop shooting at you, if you're pinned down and can't get away from them, you might have no choice but to kill them, but again much of the time you can run past or mostly ignore many firefights.
In various entries in the series you can buy businesses and perform a certain amount of legal activities, such as towing cars and salvaging ship wrecks in GTAV, you even get to experience being a dock worker for about half an hour of GTAV's story, moving shipping containers with a giant crane/cargo loader...
Overall a big thing in any GTA game is choice in how you play it and how you interact with its' world, which are indeed pretty varied.
Indeed one of the freest and least structured parts in any GTA game, is GTA Online which is included as part of GTAV...
Unlike in the main games/modes in the series, in which you're locked into playing as very specific characters (one in most games and three in GTAV), in GTA Online, you can create any type of character you like, and in particular if you play the mode exclusively in "invite only sessions", you get to experience basically all the modes features, without being hounded by the many kill hungry/anarchy loving players you meet online, while you can play people in the likes of tennis against other people in the mode, outside of your private actual sessions.
While as long as you don't mind "borrowing" a few cars, you can make plenty money to buy various things in the modes world, though slower that preforming other activities (but i've literally made a few million selling cars at up to 10,000 at a time in the mode
) .
Overall, all i can recommend is that you either find someone you know who has entries in the series you can borrow or test out in their homes etc, or failing that that you try buying some of the older entries in the series on sale and seeing if you like them
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto
