I guess in the perspective of people who played GTA3 to SA is that it was overhyped. It was a total let down compare what it had to offer in the next generation.

This... and, I never wanted it to fail.. It was GTA.. But, when I played it, it was lacking everything that san andreas did.. It was GTA 3 Remastered.  Motor Bikes, and swimming...  All the stuff you could do in san andreas and NOT any other GTA games didn't return...  That's what made it bad for me.

Changing clothes doesn't count.

The signature wins again!

I don't even bother listening to reviews anymore. When it all comes down to it, reviewers are just ordinary people and almost all reviews have many factors that affect the score that are unrelated to the game itself. It can be what system they are on, what kind of game it is, what the reviewer himself/herself expects from the game. I'm not gonna let someone probably completely different than me tell me what game I should get. Blasphemy!!

http://kotaku.com/5416788/ To reiterate truths already written.........

I know Rockstar probably paid some reviewers off. Like stated before, if your game is heavily advertised on a website from these guys, it is guaranteed some score bonus. Look at The Conduit, it got an 8.6 from IGN when it deserved 1.0-1.7 points lower in rating.

GTA4 was a 6.8 game. For all it achieved technically, it did nothing gameplay wise that I enjoyed for more than 15 minutes. The incessant phone calls, the weak police, downgraded fea-. Screw it, I've already explained why this game BLEW dozens of times.

At the time, after Halo 3, GTA4 was the biggest returning "hardcore" franchise from the past that we had. People chose to forget mentioning that Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart were on shelves at the time. GTA4 was supposed to prove that big-budget blockbusters are the only way to go in gaming and "Oscar-worthy" scripts are what gaming now has to achieve regularly. It was positioned to be heralded as a revolution in gaming of sorts. Heck, you even had leo-j saying GTA4 would kill the Wii off in its peak year nonetheless. It was the closest to games being considered art. Absolutely laughable.

GTA4 was supposed to prove the benefits of high-definition development. $100 million plus SEPARATE Ad money and voila, 10s. I was so excited to play this game and see what the hype was about. It turned out to be the standout disappointment of any game I have played this entire generation. Truly unplayable. I had more fun playing Scarface.

NO it's not a 10/10

to be a 10/10 it has to be perfect. no major glitches amazing presentation and since it is a sequal it has to be an upgrade, which it was not.

asking almost anyone, vice city and san andreas was the better game. so no way this could be a 10.

I agree 100 percent.

Great analogy there. DKC was a great game though, imo, lol. Just got flamed due to overhype.

Gamespot and IGN both admit they were paid to give it a ten.. (and every other site follows them)

They apologized a while back for this.

Notice how Red dead is a 9.5 and 9.75 though it is leagues better than gta 4 was.

Lol, i though IGN and Gamespot were just brown nosers, i had no idea they were paid. on a side note these guys heavily criticised FF13 for having a linear structure (i'm not here to debate that). but imo GTA4 had a more linear structure.

i mean even though its sandbox, you follow a bunch of straight lines (GPS) to point A (misson), you follow another set of straight lines to point B (target), you kill target and you return to point A along a series of straight lines... or perhaps they spice it up by having you procede from point B to point C.

my point is that, almost every mission in the game was Point A to Point B to Point A/C. and thats why i felt it was far too repititive and tedious and boring, and BANAL. anyway this game deserved at best 8/10, but IGN and Gamespot awarded 10s without giving objective reviews. but this is a common thing happening this gen, its not just GTA, but them being paid makes sense.