It's very good but it's not worthy of the universal 10s. (Bribing maybe? I can't see of another way it could have gotten all of the 10s when it's just the same old GTA)
The controls are awful, the camera is pretty terrible, driving sucks, money system is almost as bad as TP's*, much less side stuff to do, glitchy, lacking features and fun stuff from previous games (where are my ambulance missions, and I seem to have lost the ability to do taxi missions because of a story related event).
I really don't see how this game could have gotten the universal praise. 10 out of 10 games are supposed to do nearly everything right, and be very innovative, and GTAIV does neither. I'm thinking bribing is possible.
What do you think? I still think it's a high 9.2-5 game but it's just not as good as said.
Compare it to something like Super Mario Galaxy which is expertly designed, with VERY minor flaws, and I just don't understand....
*It's really lousy. It's okay for the first 15% or so of the game but later on you get so much money and NOTHING to do with it. They should have let you buy houses or businesses or something. Same thing as TP's money system, except possibly even worse.
Top 3 favorite games: Super Mario Galaxy, The Sims 2 (PC), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker