I don't understand it.
I played it .... and it was the same game but better looking.
Any other devs get slaughtered for never innovating.
I'm going to make a very uncharacteristic defense of GTA. Personally, I've never liked the 3D iterations of GTA. They always played like dung. And they also felt like stiff, laughably inaccurate facsimiles of our real world. Like in trying to simulate our real world it became extra clear just how much was being missed.
First booted up GTAV on PS4 and nearly couldn't believe almost every moment in that game. It was no longer a distant approximation. It had crossed some minimum threshold of realism and control to feel
good. The PS4 release, especially, came with first person view which handled very well for basic locomotion. You can now change where you're moving on a dime, as you'd expect in other FPS games. Driving also felt good.
What's more is that the game isn't just a comical, satirical world any more (though of course it's still up there). The sense of heightened "realness" and re-created real world places really made someone like me enjoy exploring LA from the comfort of my freezing Canadian home. I felt like other games in the series really hinged incredibly hard on the humor and satire, but I played a really huge chunk of hours in this game just walking around as if I was a tourist in LA before even beginning story stuff. And it held up. The amount of little details are just immense. I would have given this top marks even before I touched any missions on this basis alone.
Anyway, wow, that's too many words to basically say: I disagree, with respect. This one game basically converted me into a fan that cannot wait until GTAVI single player lands. I want to be a virtual tourist again.