PHILADELPHIA -- The public got its first look Tuesday at a controversial video game called Grand Theft Auto IV.

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Video Report | Survey

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It's jammed full of sex, drugs, and lots of blood-soaked violence, and it's flying off store shelves.

For some people, that is a disturbing sign of the times, NBC 10's Jamison Uhler reported.

One of the groups lining up in criticizing the game is Philadelphia's police union.

"It's a good game, man. You get to run over cops, kill people, run them over," one man told NBC 10 early Tuesday.

It's expected to be the hottest-selling video game over, and it was the reason hundreds lined up at midnight to buy the shoot 'em up thriller, chock full of sex and violence.

"The glorification of killing of any police officer is just wrong. I mean, it desensitizes people to the real mayhem that's going on out on the streets, and we already have a real problem with people not valuing human life," said Eugene Blagmond, of the Fraternal Order of Police.

But that didn't seem to stop gamers from lining up Tuesday at a Port Richmond video game store, including four police officers in the span of an hour spotted buying the controversial game.

Gamers said the critics' contention that these games could spur violence against cops is wrong.

"From playing this game, does it make you want to go out and do that stuff," Uhler asked on purchaser.

"Oh, no. It's not like that, man. We all know it's a video game; we can't do that for real," one man replied.

"It's a way to get out frustration, you know, so that you wouldn't do that in real life, I would like to believe," another man said.

Reality has set in recently in Philadelphia with the murder of two police officers in two years, sandwiched by a spate of gunfire directed at cops. But can critics blame realistic video games?

"People don't seem to have a problem turning guns on cops, and this game -- I know it's just a game, but people sometimes have trouble separating reality from fantasy," Blagmond said.

Estimates are that Grand Theft Auto IV could make upwards of $400 million, and that's just in its first week alone, Uhler reported.

NBC 10 contacted the game's maker for comment Tuesday but had not heard back before airtime.