It's interesting, because they do acknowledge that through their own research they haven't found a link:
Quote:
From the PDF, page 7:
In analysing and classifying a game, the BBFC will assess two overriding aspects of the work:
• its harmful effects, if any;
• its acceptability to broad public opinion at the age group concerned.
The BBFC acknowledges the difference between watching a film or video and the more interactive experience of playing a game. However, research
into whether this interactivity has any significant effect on the potential for harm, which the BBFC is required to consider, is inconclusive. Consequently, in considering harm arguments, the BBFC errs on the side of caution and applies the same standards to games as to video.
However, the interactivity inherent in video games may, in certain contexts, lead to a greater potential for offence. While films and videos may present low levels of violence, sex, drugs or bad language in a manner appropriate for younger audiences, the ability of games to make the player complicit in these activities may cause them to be deemed inappropriate for the same age group, even if the level of detail is the same. These issues are naturally of greatest concern at the lowest age categories, where they form a major component of the game, and where the level of interactivity is high.
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Obviously with regards to content and the general tone the BBFC has issues with, Manhunt 2 isn't the first game to place you in the role of a criminal protagonist. GTA (at least last time I played one) has you playing a career criminal, though one who generally limits any killing to that of other criminals; the Hitman series has you playing an assassin who kills for money in a brutal (if not particularly graphic) way, even if a lot of his primary targets are entirely unpleasant characters. The themes of Manhunt 2 have to be so many levels above this that they cross this arbitrary line between tolerable and unacceptable.