Why GTA IV, one of the 2 best games of this gen, received so much hate.

[richardhutnik]

Bitmap Frogs said:

richardhutnik said:
Rock Star apparently wanted to go for "realism" of some sort in the game. They wanted the game to be seen as high drama, and so on. They got away from the sheer mayhem of sandbox mode single player, and had players forced through a story. Check the comments to see. It is more than just a fanboy angle.

 

It is true that the city in GTA4 is more of a background rather than a playground, but that's not necessarily bad.

The only non-debatable weakness is lack of mission variety

I believe when you do that, you end up losing the sandbox appeal that fans wanted.  I think Rockstar probably thought multiplayer is where the sandbox mayhem would funnel into, but that didn't happen as much as they thought it would.