The World Cup ran pretty well i guess. did the situation change that dramatically in two years? even in 2004 while i traveled there you could almost physically feel the danger weighing on your shoulders. and i felt that even before getting mugged at gunpoint in the middle of the day in Copacabana street (Which is a main street there).
hint: Rio was always a megatrash tourist trap. Now its just a hellish megatrash tourist trap. I don't think anyone in BR takes Rio (the city, not the state) seriously except for its gigantic crime rates and tourism, except maybe for a tired and archaic artistic class that still thinks Rio is relevant in any other way after the capital got moved.
If you want to have fun in BR, forget Rio, go to Bahia or some of the sweet ass beaches in the north. You'll spend a fair bit less money, enjoy some real paradise-eske places, get to see tons of pretty women around who aren't just prostitutes disguised as beach girls and
probably not get mugged. You can also go to the south (way south) and basically walk around mini central europe and enjoy some of the best wine and ale I've ever tasted and some pretty great hotels and resorts. If you want to buy shit, go to São Paulo where you can find literally everything ever made by mankind for sale, apart from maybe nuclear weapons and particle accelerators, we don't have those for sale yet, sorry. If you're feeling extra adventurous, go to the amazon and enjoy getting eaten by jaguars, crocodiles, mosquito swarms, pink dolphin things and spiders as big as your chest.
Of course, the rest of the world thinks BR is Rio and basically nothing else, and its partly our government's fault, despite BR being basically half a continent.