While I understand why a lot of people feel that GTA IV is too slow, grey and "serious". At least I feel IV has something to tell. When playing V I feel that I'm wasting my time. I haven't played multiplayer enough (apparently online should be GTA V's strongest feature) but regarding singleplayer (story, characters and atmosphere) I don't find much joy in GTA V.

Together with San Andreas, IV is my favorite GTA game. For me V was a letdown because I couldn't sympathize with its story (get $100 mill because reasons) and characters (didn't help that you were forced to play as 3 different, yet all boring guys).

Additionally, it lacked atmosphere and tension. Even the brightest and most "goofy" GTA games had some dark and serious moments as well as difficult missions but I didn't feel the atmosphere in V and I don't think I failed a mission once. That's why me and a few friends refer to V as "Grand Theft Autopilot".

You gotta have the contrasts to those feel good vibes in order to appreciate them.

IV is awful in my opinion. There's almost nothing fun to do in the city. The plot was tedious and it tried way too hard to be realistic. The art style is ugly.
V was an improvement for sure. A decent game, yet also very overrated.
The best in my opinion are Chinatown Wars, San Andreas and III in that order.

GTA 4 without a doubt for me. San Andreas is still the best.

Played both GTA III and GTA Vice City on my ps4 recently, never really touched them before.... absolutely hated them. The camera controls, aiming, controls. It's all ew. GTA 2 was actually a fun little game.

Enjoyed GTA 4 and GTA 5.

4. A total bore from start to finish.

GTA4 for sure, it was the GTA that forgot to be fun. It's a draw between VC and San Andreas for the best, but GTA5 was awesome too.

Other than San Andreas to some extend i didn't get into any of them. I was amazed how absurd it got. If i had to pick one, i'd go with GTA5. You usually play scummy characters in this series, so i was hardly asking for a saint. The fact you play as someone like Trevor made me totally disgusted with what i was playing.

Am done with the series.

I think both Vice City and 5 are quite overrated.

Vice City felt so incredibly tiny. Other than that I have no complaints about it.
5 has basically the same mission structure that was considered boring in IV, but people seem to completely ignore that. Only thing that saves it is having 3 different protagonists and changing between them during those lame-ish missions.

OT: Probably GTA I, II or one of the PSP spin-offs.

I played GTA(Liberty City Stories,Vice City,Vice City Stories,San Andreas,IV and V) IV worst gta without doubt,boring as hell.The best?GTA San Andreas

GTA V was the absolute worst GTA I have ever played.

...I mean I loved every minute, but since it is the only one I have ever played it also makes it the worst.