Going in I expected to absolutely hate this game since I have a track record of dropping every other Rockstar titles I tried in the past but it turns out I ended up liking this one, quite a lot actually. Although, there are specific segments of the game combined with some bafflingly archaic and repetitive design choices that I disliked equally as much

The story is obviously the game's main selling point and oh boy did it not deliver on that front. It's a character-driven narrative with competent writing that is no less worthy of being called a narrative masterpiece. Anyone that's willing to look past the slow pacing at the start is bound to appreciate what the story has to offer given it picks up pretty fast, around 2 chapters in or so. Though, even the slower parts of the story weren't bad and that's all thanks to the memorable cast of characters, to further strengthen my point, I have a terrible memory when it comes down to names but I can recall the entire gang by their names.
But if you know me, the story will mean absolutely nothing if the game has nothing else going on for itself. So no matter how good it is, it's not the highlight in a "video game", it's the dynamic open world. If anyone as of now asks me what my favorite open world game is I'd say it's RDR2 at the drop of a hat, the open world is that good. The amount of effort that went into crafting the world is ridiculous given how there's rarely any repetition and every single encounter always has something new to offer. Exploring the open world for the first time stumbling across random chance encounters and stranger missions or just interacting with the world in general were some of the most fun I've ever had playing this game while being completely enamored by the realistic yet subtly stylized art direction.

Aaand this is where the praises stop, now it's time to whine

This game can be such a fucking waste of time to sit through after the honeymoon phase is over and I blame it all on the stupid obsession with realism Rockstar had while making this game. Oh you want to go from one corner of the map to another one to do a side quest or whatever? Good luck sitting through doing NOTHING while watching your horse in cinematic view from awkward ass angles for 10 minutes and more! Like, I don't care about your stupid boner for realism, don't waste my time and give me an option to fast travel like every other open world games
The gameplay during story missions are either stupid chores or straight up direction-following simulator made for mentally handicapped children. There's so little freedom as to how you can approach the missions it's infuriating, like what the hell do you mean "MISSION FAILED" just because I tried reaching our objectives a little ahead of the stupid NPCs I'm supposed to trail at the pace of a literal goddamn snail?? I swear every single story mission plays out literally the same. It's basically, you follow an NPC for minutes then engage in some unpolished and clunky cover based third person shooter then follow NPCs some more and repeat, it's literally so braindead. I'm sorry but if all you do are the main quests just to wrap up the game, you haven't actually played the game, you just watched some low IQ interactive movie. At least try and take notes from your own damn open world, it's not that hard.
The story also ends on a sour note with an extremely rushed epilogue that's somehow also needlessly stretched out for no goddamn apparent reasons. Honestly would've preferred if the credits rolled right after Chapter 6 instead of the washed up DLC ass epilogue that stretches on for 7 hours

Despite my complaints I still think the pros outweigh the cons, so it's a good game overall in my book. Though I don't recommend it if you don't have the patience for Rockstar's dated game design philosophy