Tries to be 'too' realistic, but still pretty fun.
The city (9):
The city is much bigger than the Liberty City of GTA3, but I find that it lacks that style that GTA3 had. Even with the enhanced graphics over GTA3, the atmosphere looks kind of dead and just not as interesting to me as the GTA3 atmosphere. The unsaturated style of color doesn't help much, even though it can be adjusted. I think Rockstar did a good job on re-creating a half- (if that) sized version of Manhattan, the other areas are a much smaller than their real-life counter parts. Still they are much closer to NYC than GTA3. In fact, in GTA3, it was hard to tell which city it was modeled after. It just looked like a generic east coast American city. The divisions of the city are similar to the real NYC. Algonquin is Manhattan, Dukes is Queens, Broker is Brooklyn, etc.
The story (8):
Typical GTA rise from the ground story. You are Niko Bellic, a solo Eastern European criminal who is recently "off the boat", a criminal who is on the rise and independently contract yourself to various crime bosses throughout the city, using your experience in the military of your previous homeland. You start out with some bosses affiliated with the Russian mob, but work your way around, working for or against a group trying to resurrect the practically dead LC (NYC) Irish mob, Jamaican rastafarian gangs, Puerto Ricans, African-American gangs, bikers, Chinese triads, and corrupt FIB (FBI) agents, corrupt LCPD (NYPD) officers, and eventually you end up with the most (in-)famous LC (NYC) crime element - the Italian mafia, which is also suffering from a decline due to the FIB cracking down on them in the 70s.
The gameplay (8):
As in most GTA games, the game play is difficult but not too hard, but the constant driving to and fro for every mission will grind on your nerves if you lack in patience. If you botch a mission by accidentally shooting your partner or shooting a rocket-propelled grenade too close to an object so that it explodes on you, you often have to start from the initial cutscene of the mission, which is often all the way across town. Also the police are extra aggressive and erratic in this game, and often you may find yourself on the last stretch of a mission on the getaway part, and a police car will sneak up on you and throw you some absurd place, or blow up your car. I once found myself on foot on an elevated train track on one mission, when all I had was a couple blocks to the safehouse. Not being able to fly planes is something that is missing though, compared to San Andreas where you could do almost anything transportation oriented. The car physics also take some getting used to, especially the skid turns / power slides. It's easy to find yourself doing a full 180.
The characters (9): All the characters in the game are pretty well developed, even the side game ones like your dating interests. They aren't all your stereotypical criminal types. They all have varied reasons for getting into crime, be it family, finances, safety, or whatever. Some of the characters are pretty good guys. The main character's cousin Roman is more focused on women and really couldn't care less about the crime part. He runs a cab company and only affiliates himself with the mob for protection. Often his cousin Niko has to save him from vicious crime bosses.
Overall: Too many things were missing from GTA San Andreas for me to give this a higher score, but some things were added that halfway make up for it. I'll give this an 8.5, since it's a solid game and you won't have many major complaints with it unless you are ultra picky. I just don't think it was what the GTA3 series was in fun factor. Rockstar obviously wanted a more realistic game, but I thought GTA was fun because it /wasn't/ realistic. I mean, shooting up 100 peds and then escaping from a law enforcement system with no filing system or memory about your criminal history, and that only uses a star system for a short period of time? The game is about being a criminal with minimal consequences, why would it want to be realistic all of the sudden?