Personally, after playing through the whole series GTA 4 might be the second weakest entry right after GTA 3, and thats an unfair comparison as GTA 3 was the first 3D game in the franchise.

Coming off from San Andreas, the game feels like a massive downgrade. The lack of things to do is almost comical, despite the city being so beautiful. Felt like that really brings it down a notch.

People talk about how this games story is the best in the franchise, and while the themes it tackle is very mature, i feel like the characters weren't fleshed out enough for me to really feel connected to the story. Niko is interesting, Roman is funny, and everyone else feels like an afterthought. I remember the Italian guy, and packie, but that's about it.

The best moment of the game was definetely the confrontation with Darko, and the choice to spare him or kill him, and it felt like one of the few emotional highs the game actually manages to accomplish.

The plot feels very tangential to the actual story, and after a certain point everything Niko does is for an unspecified amount of money, which ultimately ends up pulling the game down.

Now, I'm not gonna say much about driving because this is highly opinionated, but I genuinely could not bring myself to drive a lot of vehicles in the game. I don't like the braindead driving of 5 either, but it's better than spending half the game in taxis.

The gunfights on the other hand is something I had a lot of fun with, and the cop chases. these are great, well done, and I think have perfect difficulty. The most fun I've had was drinking with buddies and listening to them go on rambles!

The soundtrack was pretty good, radio is amazing. That intro is probably one of my favorite intros to a game ever, right behind Sifu.

Overall, i think it was a very weak entry. The game lacks cohesion, and things to do. San andreas is still the best game in the franchise, just because of how much things there are to do.