Niko is my favorite GTA protagonist, and the story and characters are just as great as SA's (probably even better), but everything else is just worse.

This is the point where Rockstar tried to go for realism and that means clunky, weighty movement and realistic car handling that feels really slow.

90% of the missions are just "go there and kill people" and there's very little side content, and even less of that is actually fun to do.

The physics are fun as fuck though and it's sad that GTA V nerfed them heavily.