For playing Blu-Ray discs without DRM, the MacGo Blu-Ray Player might be an OK alternative to VLC -- if its advertised "outstanding decryption capacity" works OTOH, so you can watch retail Blu-Ray movies right as they come out of their case, this MacGo player might save you some cash while it's on GOTD. It doesn't come close to Blu-Ray versions of Cyberlink PowerDVD, Roxio CinePlayer, or Nero Kwik Media, all of which can handle Java-based menus & features [the MacGo Player can't], but today PowerDVD 12 Pro for example is listed for $80 on Cyberlink's site.
Playing the actual audio/video that's put on a Blu-Ray disc isn't hard nowadays -- there are several free players [e.g. VLC] that can do it quite well... handling the Java-based features, handling the DRM, & enforcing DRM so you can license the necessary DRM keys is what makes it challenging, & more expensive. IMO there just isn't an ideal free or low cost app or method if/when you want to play complete Blu-Ray discs. If the menus & features don't interest you, if you grab one of the Blu-Ray copy or decrypter apps when it's available for free, & if it works on the disc you want to watch, copying the movie to your hard drive will let you use a free player like VLC, but that's more work than many people want to bother with.
FWIW retail Blu-Ray discs, the movies you buy/rent, have [sometimes extreme levels of] DRM, e.g. Sony goes so far as to have an inaudible audio signal buried in the sound tracks that their current player firmware looks for, there may be a hundred or more fake titles, plus you have the evolving AACS protection, & then there's BD Live. Retail Blu-Ray discs use Java -- why it takes so long for them to load in your stand-alone player -- so players need to be able to use Java too. And because Blu-Ray DRM methods are often updated, players need to be regularly updated too -- this becomes an issue when companies stop updating older players. Software players face a few more hurdles... Windows needs to understand the UDF 2.5 format Blu-Ray discs use, which is a problem in XP, even if/when you add the optional Microsoft updates. Players also need to work with win7's built-in DRM & HDCP video cards/chipsets, as well as work with the hardware video acceleration those cards/chipsets provide [this is separate from stuff like Nvidia's CUDA that you hear about]. Finally, software players have to be both efficient & fast enough that slower hardware can play Blu-Ray discs too, not just the most powerful rigs available. All that IMHO has kept Blu-Ray more as a niche rather than main stream format -- last I read most people play DVDs on their PCs & HDTVs.