All of the main love interests are bad people. Ellie is a manipulative little cunt, Vanessa is a cop, Jenna is money-grubbing and rather pathetic, Lydia is a full-on bunny-boiler, and Steph is dumb as a brick (which at least isn't a moral flaw). In real life I'd go a long way to avoid all of them, but that's not a problem because hey, none of this is real.
Sounds like you stopped and rewound just before it got really dark, which is fine if that's your preference. And yes, Emma is very much in play.
I'm a fan of dark themes in AVNs, but more on the psychological side, broken people having fucked up past and the like, but not actually enacting dark stuff with people in those AVN, also not a fan of BDSM... that said, I remember I liked a couple scenes in City of Broken Dreamers, with a particularly obnoxious freak of a news anchor named Shanlon, so...
I'll try it anyway, just to see, the completionist I am couldn't pass the opportunity anyway, I did the 3 endings of Vanessa's path after all. (Tiffany is a real tease... damn)
Lastly, when you mentioned how all the LI are bad people, and Vanessa is a cop, laughed out loud, I mean, there are some good cops too hahaha, and I don't know, beyond her domination kink, which is kinda mild to me (unless it becomes even weirder in the next updates, which I expect), she pretty much is the only one who's at least decent in all those LIs.
And well, the MC is a lawyer, and a creep, so yeah, you may have a point.