We spent a week at
Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta this past February. It was
lovely. It was also
huge, with plenty of restaurants, a "ridonculous" pool complex, sufficient night life for us oldsters (but probably not enough for our kids--they are in their 20s), and a very pleasant beach on the bay with plenty of loungers under the shade.
As others have noted, it is perfectly possible to get to the resort via arranged transportation, and then never leave the confines of the resort. In fact, it's relatively hard to escape, much like it is at WDW. However, if you like you can easily escape by heading north on the beach, where a bit of Nuevo Vallarta is available on foot--I ended up doing that about halfway through the week, just to see it. We also did a third-party whale watching trip (that was AWESOME), and even that was taxi-to/taxi-from with no real effort on our part to make it happen.
We'd go back in a heartbeat. I'd be more inclined to go off-resort when I go back, as well. We did not feel the need to travel with armed security, but
apparently we live on the wild side.