
There are no squeaky-clean factions in Fallout: New Vegas. Caesar's Legion is outright authoritarian and psychopathic, Mr. House's ruthlessness and egomania make him hard to trust, and while the New California Republic is comparatively easier to live with, it's far from heroic.
As lead writer John Gonzalez told PC Gamer in an interview with associate editor Ted Litchfield, that's all by design: "I remember when we were just kicking off the project, [New Vegas lead Josh Sawyer] coming into a conference room and saying, 'Okay, so we're not doing any good or evil, black and white stuff. We're doing everything in shades of gray. It's going to be moral ambiguity and complexity.'"