What's with all the GTA IV hate?

[Sorcery]

I didn't didn't even like GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas... but GTAIV destroyed the series even further.

I always loved GTA and GTA2. With GTA3, the series kept some of its quirky charms (it dumped a lot of them too), and turned into a sandbox game where the only fun thing to do was create some mayhem. I didn't like that the series turned into a collection of games, all of which were sub-par. Sub-standard driving, sub-standard shooting, sub-standard graphics, sub-standard story...

GTAIV took it one step further and destroyed all the unrealistic parts of GTA (except for Niko's superhuman ability to fly out a windshield, roll for an entire city block, then get back up). The game was actually good in a lot of respects, but the realism felt restricting, and it was a huge step back from the progress they made with Vice City and San Andreas.

To be honest, I played Saints Row 2 and enjoyed it far more than GTAIV.