If Mortal Kombat didn't have the story it does now, I'd probably have little interest in it and play it casually.
I love MK for its story.
I loved Deception, I loved Deadly Alliance, Armageddon sucked

The gameplay was horrible, but just the satisfaction of getting all of the lore in the game was reason enough for me to keep on trucking.
I wasn't drawn to MK because of violence, and I'm not the minority in that decision, I'm the only one lol.
I was drawn because of its interesting characters.
You could have put SF 3 and MK 3 in front me as a kid and I'd go right for the game with the robots and Centaurs.