FMW

It's worth comparing to Isaac because Edmund McMillen worked on both. Isaac is definitely more gross... I don't get it for SMB though - it's blood. He's like a little raw steak cube. I think it's much worse shooting someone in the head and watching the blood spray out. In SMB it sort of tells you where you've been as you rack up the retries. To each his own though - when Limbo came out, so many people saw the spider and went "NO NO NO NO NO"

I was using the term "offensive" rather loosely here, cause I was sick of repeating the word gross. Let's go with repulsive, then. The point remains the same. I'm simply surprised that you're having such a strong reaction to the game's aesthetics because they seemed so mild to me that they never even registered as something that could potentially put someone off the game entirely.

As for not seeing why you would want to play it, well, you're certainly free to play or not play any damn game you please. But like people have said before, SMB is an absolutely amazing and incredibly satisfying platformer. So that's something to at least consider before writing it off entirely