What does the American dream mean to you?
The gameplay is amazing. The amount of detail and overhaul is astounding. The clumsy targeting system of old is thrown out the window and in its place is a new over-the-shoulder targeting system that while great, isn't totally without it's flaws. If you're shooting someone and are being shot at from the rear, you'll have to disengage the enemy in front of you, turn around, and attack the thugs behind you. What would've worked better is a method of quick turning found in Resident Evil 4. The driving feels more realistic, each car is weighted and handles like it's real life counter part. The dialog and story line is fresh and superb. The voice acting is also a real treat mainly because this time, Rockstar decided to hire actors who, for all intents and purposes, are relative unknowns. The sound track is also great, but can fall into tedium at times.
Speaking of tedium, the mission structures haven't totally undergone a major overhaul. In essence, you still have your run-and-gun, race-and-chase style gameplay, which can get repetitive and very old very fast. Still, the lust to see what comes next overshadows the often times tedious gameplay. There are many ways to get through the city including trains, subways, taxis (you can be a passenger this time), cars, and helicopters. It still would've been cool to see a plane in the game, but that's just me being picky.
What I found the most astonishing is that with other games in the series, the anti-hero is seen as a man with no conscience, but this wasn't so with GTA IV. With the exception of Victor Vance in Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories, who came off more like a hypocrite than a troubled protagonist, Niko really feels like a genuine human being with a whole graveyard's worth of skeletons in his closet. There are two possible endings and depending on which mission you choose, you can still find Niko lamenting about the failed experiment known as the American dream. Rockstar Games doesn't glorify the bad guy. If anything, the storyline presents Niko just as he is--a killer with a boulder's weight of guilt strapped to his back and a pessimistic outlook on life.
The Xbox 360 version comes with downloadable content which should be release by the end of this year or early 2009. Though this is speculation on my part, I can only assume there will be DLC for the PS3.
This game has minor flaws, but the in all honesty, they are easily overlooked.