I can see why people consider it a classic. It really is the title where Saints Row came into its own, and the story really helps form that: contrary to the rest of the series, it's just serious enough to keep you invested in every cutscene, but also funny enough to make you laugh.

Sadly, though, it's not the best one to actually play: the AI is actually so dumb it's a coinflip as to whether or not a mission will be easy as shit or they'll just randomly run you over and insta-kill you, about half the side activities suck (though I did like the touch where there's an actual reason you were hired to do them), and the PC port is so bad that most of the major issues with it can't even be wholly fixed.

It made me appreciate Saints Row a lot more and even question if I liked the lack of seriousness in the rest of the series, but I'm not gonna pretend it's spectacular to play.