Well, as a person who has actually lived in Mexico (The capital and other states), I guess I can contribute with some insight as to what living in Mexico is like.
Is Mexico more appealing than the U.S.?
Short answer: Lol, no.
Long answer: It depends, really. What you need to understand when thinking about how life is like in Mexico is that Mexico is a melting pot of everything (Lifestlye, races, wealth, poverty, violence, technology, mysticism, food, etc.). So, here's the deal. In Mexico you can find ANYTHING; ranging from African levels of violence , poverty, and crime, to mega rich societies like the ones you see in stupid Hollywood movies. That's the key factor many people tend to overlook when thinking of Latin America in general. However, unlike other Latin American countries, Mexico has this unique characteristic: It shares a lot of similarities with other countries.
For example, Mexico is, obviously, a Latin American country. So, of course you will find many of the stereotypes associated with said region (Love for soccer, soap operas, people yelling, etc). At the same time, Mexico has had direct influence from Europe and the U.S. throughout its history, and it continues to this day; you will never see Mexico becoming a "Socialist" state like Venezuela or Argentina, for Mexicans consider themselves to be capitalistic and entrepreneurial (Kind of like a very Mexican version of American entrepreneurship). Ancient Mexican cultures did invent things like sewers (Aztecs), and developed formal astronomy (Mayans) well before the Spanish arrived; then they fucked it up by not continuing their scientific progress, like China.
On the other hand, you have things like corruption, which stems from the gaps in wealth and quality of living. It amazes me how on one end of a street you have normal people (As if you were walking through the streets of any other city), and, at the other end you have people living like animals (Loud music, yelling, people dressed in worn-out clothes, gangs, etc.). You have people littering (Because they do not grasp the concept of being responsible to the environment), and of course, the drug cartels. Also, there is a clear divide between Mexicans who migrate to the U.S., and the locals. Mexican denizens kind of hate those who leave for the U.S. There's a bunch of slurs Mexicans use when referring to Mexicans living illegally in the U.S., and there's also a sort of resentment aimed towards immigrants. One the more common complaints is that Mexicans hate immigrants because they are shitty people (Full Mexican racist stereotype), and would rather go make it big in the U.S. rather than staying and fixing Mexico. It's like a love-hate relationship.
I won't go into too much detail about the drug cartels because, well, it's a very huge topic. I will say this, however, the drug cartels and the violence related to it is "contained". What I mean by this is that, drug violence and cartels are mostly a thing that happen on the norther Mexican border (aka the southern U.S. border). This is due to the fact that Mexico is a "fragmented" country.
One common misconception is the thing about the one party ruling the entire country. It's not false, but rather, an incomplete truth. It is true that the PRI party ruled Mexico like a dictatorship for 70 years through corruption. However, this ended in the year 2000. Ever since then, it's been a free-for-all. The opposition party ruled for two terms before the current administration won the presidential elections only(Which came back after a 12 year hiatus), not the senate or other states. The rest of the states are under various other political parties (Mexico has 4 major political parties and like 30+ minor ones). But yeah, Mexican politicians are all corrupt.
Still, it does have some nice things to consider. For example, healthcare is universal. Provided free of charge and covers absolutely everything, from a common cold to experimental treatments. Another example would be education. It is free of charge and covers you all the way up to college.
Shit, this whole Mexico subject is huge. I don't mean to bore you with statistics or any of that shit. I speak from personal experience. Nevertheless, I feel like it is important to know that while some of the common stereotypes associated with Mexico are true, many of them are either exaggerated, outdated, or complete lies. I do have some very funny and interesting anecdotes. Like, this one time I went to a "White Nationalist rally" in downtown Mexico City (I shit you not, this is actually happened), and the first thing I see is one of the members being a stereotypical brown dude wearing a sombrero. And yes, he was part of this group.
I guess I can summarize this post in a few sentences:
Bad Mexico: A violent north, a corrupt center, and an underdeveloped south.
Good Mexico: Friendly people, cheap cost of living. Just stick to big cities and don't fuck with the wrong people in the wrong places.
Either way, you do see some weird shit in Mexico; like brown nazis, or people celebrating Halloween for 3 days straight.
