Cary: I prefer the hard versions. Online comics just don't read as well as when they are firmly in my hands. and yes those wave 6 guys are frikkin awesome and I am so glad I got them from that ebay seller I showed you guys 2 weeks ago. I got the next to last one too (had to wait for the paycheck)
Silly:
we'll start with Arcee: I honestly like this interpretation of her. She was an experiment, and there is no way she can ever truly undo what all that did to her, such as her blind hatred and her brutality. It makes sense to me. And while it is a bit of a stinker in SotW, It works, as it is actually making sense with her personality compared to that of the wreckers (like Roadbuster in a way). Now Prime Arcee to me is the best Arcee we've gotten as she mixed all her emotions and histories and storylines together nicely. IDW has her by far more brutal, but it fits the character and all the background done with her.
Now as for gory stuff: the Transformers (ex-RiD) and combiner wars and such is more about actual battle and--considering where we are in the post-war era--is as close to the regular transformers war that this is gonna get for now. So they can focus more on the fight and less on the actual brutality of the actions (if that makes sense).
Now MTMTE is no where near about war. MTMTE is a quest story, and quest stories have their actions. like here: so far they have only ever fought an individual for a few individuals with a massive army of drones (We're not to the DJD yet) so any sort of death and fight has had the ability to go deeper and darker than most transformers comics. Ambulon, Pipes, Trailcutter, their deaths were showed in detail due to the fact that they were the one person in the situation and the 1 person to die, and because you feel a bit more connected to these characters and the feel more human, it hurts a bit more. sort of like a violent soap opera sort of deal. MTMTE can get cruel and deep because it isn't a war story. It is something completely different. Now, I do not feel it has gotten any higher maturity content than The Transformers, but it delves into much different stuff. Horrifying death is a part of the show, but it only happens every 6-8 issues or so. Now they have shown some very dark and disturbing things, but that is the nature, almost like what happens behind the scenes in war stories that we never see. Almost like TT is telling the war story and MTMTE is including behind the scenes stuff, emotions, struggles and deaths not normally seen. And that makes it that much more interesting.
I hope that kinda makes for a good explanation