I have not finished the game and likely never will but I have played it for, according to Steam, an entire 24 hours. The plot I have managed to get through was interesting in places with some compelling characters. It also had several I couldn't stand being around and the gameplay was in many places simply awful.
I got very annoyed with it as for the fiftieth time I ran straight past the pillar I was trying to hide behind and lost my last few degrees of health circle to an npc who ran through a haze of bullets without a hit. The controls felt like I had just woken up in the morning after several bottles of scotch that hadn't worn off yet. Even the menu felt like this. It took over a second of pressing a button or moving the mouse before there was any response from the game and that was before I had started playing.
The story and characters were enough to keep me playing through until some shady government department gets involved, but no further. It didn't come close to my level of involvement in Saints Row 2, where I kept playing till the end in spite of worse control issues because I had some investment in myself. In GTA 4 I could hardly even change what I looked like and had no control over my personality so my attachment to my character was tenuous to start with.
I got very annoyed with it as for the fiftieth time I ran straight past the pillar I was trying to hide behind and lost my last few degrees of health circle to an npc who ran through a haze of bullets without a hit. The controls felt like I had just woken up in the morning after several bottles of scotch that hadn't worn off yet. Even the menu felt like this. It took over a second of pressing a button or moving the mouse before there was any response from the game and that was before I had started playing.
The story and characters were enough to keep me playing through until some shady government department gets involved, but no further. It didn't come close to my level of involvement in Saints Row 2, where I kept playing till the end in spite of worse control issues because I had some investment in myself. In GTA 4 I could hardly even change what I looked like and had no control over my personality so my attachment to my character was tenuous to start with.