Pokémon - Legendary Irony

Yeah, pretty much. Most Dark-type moves are just cheap/underhanded fighting tactics, with the only exceptions being ones introduced after the Physical/Special split.

The moves that actually involve darkness/shadows (Shadow Ball, Shadow Claw, Shadow Sneak, Night Shade, etc.) are all Ghost type.

can't forget about night slash. In japanese its called crossroad killing in reference to evil practices of samurai killing pedestrians at crossings to test their swords capability.
One thing us English speakers aren't used to is a game being translated to English… so pokemon words can get quite confusing.