i didnt really like this game the first few times i played it and i was originally planning to log it once i got 100% but i finished a playthrough recently so decided to just do it. For some reason it grew on me a lot this time around, perhaps it's playing on a good pc with consistent FPS and good ol console visuals mod (mod where it restores the console visuals and some other stuff from the consoles, not really major but i liked it a lot while playing), the game's unfortunately still really buggy but nothing game breaking except that helicopter bug at the end of the out of commission ending. it was still an overall very fun experience.
the driving is arguably the most important part of the game and they took a big risk with it by making the cars more "fluid" i guess and not exactly bolted to the ground like other GTA games, once you actually learn how to drive and know when to slow down at turns and slowly handbraking, the driving becomes very fun and i honestly cant imagine playing with the driving like V or any of the 3D era games after IV, the driving was too good.
the open world is probably the best out of any other GTA game, perfect atmosphere of late 00s NYC blended with NPCs that keep it alive and strangers you find around, really great.
missions unfortunately were still pretty repetitive but it's heavily carried by its dialogue, music and driving, V has more cinematic missions but IV with its gunplay were pretty satisfying
The story was good, nothing special and not as good as V but it was good enough, Niko is a great protagonist and characters like Roman and LJ are very well written. The endings couldve been done way better as they're 2 options, one that's really bad and you lose roman and kate (not through death but she stops contacting you) in it and the other is where you lose kate only who was introduced like a quarter in the game and wasnt really developed that well for the player to care about, and you still get the 250k regardless and roman still talks to you, so there's really no benefit to picking the deal ending. the money that makes you do the deal ending in the first place is given at the end of the revenge ending. Could've been done way better by maybe introducing a better character at the beginning and developing them alongside roman or something, but still alright, not too focused on the story since it's a rockstar game
Amazing game overall and despite its flaws is still a pretty fun game with a fantastic open world and very fun driving