The world is too big, or rather, the mission design is shitty with too many missions following the dragged out formula of:

1. Spend 5 minutes driving to mission start
2. Spend 5-8 minutes driving to point A of mission
3. Spend 30 seconds - 2 minutes shooting people
4. Drive for 5 minutes,
5. End.

Another one after point 1 is

2. Go here,
3. Get in car
4. Chase someone.

I'll use the phrase "Fucking shit".

They upped enemy damage so now the combat is like a shooter, with damage so high the sandbox approach becomes limited as you'll just die if you don't stick to cover in most missions. Plus the combat is really shitty by todays standards, go play Sleeping Dogs to see how to do a brilliant melee and gun combat in this style of game.

The world is too big, or rather, the mission design is shitty with too many missions following the dragged out formula of:

1. Spend 5 minutes driving to mission start
2. Spend 5-8 minutes driving to point A of mission
3. Spend 30 seconds - 2 minutes shooting people
4. Drive for 5 minutes,
5. End.

Another one after point 1 is

2. Go here,
3. Get in car
4. Chase someone.

There is some variety, but not a lot considering the amount of missions. Only the heists really shake things up and there just aren't enough of those. Plus, there is very little options given to the player in missions, they're all scripted unlike earlier games which allowed much more sandbox

Then there is just the completely dumbfuck mission design like "Run 8km in a desert" which takes about 30 minutes of just running about in a desert with F-all to do in it. Or wearing the same costume for 30 in-game days when if you die or switch character you'll switch costume.

The mini-games are all shit too, why anyone would want to play shitty golf or shitty tennis I don't know, we have games like Tiger Woods and Virtua Tennis etc, why would anyone want to play these shitty GTA versions, they aren't what GTA has ever been about, why are they here?

There is more crappy design like letting buy and upgrade cars...then everytime you do a story mission keep forcing you to use each characters first car, or even if you switch to a character after not using them a while, they've ditched you bought car and gone back to the shitty originals. It makes the entire buying/upgrading cars feature worth shit all.

Oh, and lets not forget the collectables, fucking hell is this a outdated design, yeah another one, in old PS2 GTA games the cities were smaller, the collectables big bright objects you could easy see at distance, every ramp WAS a stuntjump. This does not work in 2013, it didn't work in GTAIV in 2008, when you NEED a guide to find all collectables, and you do because some are hard to see if you 10ft from them, then you have failed in game design. 90% of the ramps in the game are not 'official' jumps now, how are you meant to find them? Fly under bridges? Except a bunch of them do not count? Find a package on a rock you can only get to in a helicopter and cannot see unles you pretty much land on top of it? Outdated, shitty, failed design anywhere.


...and don't get me started on the online.

People describe GTA as a sandbox game, but GTAV to me seems more like an uncleaned litter tray, with cat piss everywhere and turds buried all over.

Incidently, how do I apply to be a reviewer on Gamrreview?

No, and you cut off this "Plus, there is very little options given to the player in missions, they're all scripted unlike earlier games which allowed much more sandbox"

See in Vice City for example, in a go, here, chase type mission you got lots of freedom, you could block off the road pre-mission so the chase lasts 5 seconds, or ram him into water and let him drown, ram him of road then get out gun him down, or just blow up his car mid chase.   In GTA nearly every mission is scripted, so you just chase until some scripted crash, or only get to blow a car up when it tells you otherwise mission fail, if want to drown someone then it because the game makes you, and road blocks get removed if you try them.

It isn't a sandbox anymore, is a linear corridor game set in an open world.