I am Basking in the Awesomeness of this game.
Niko is a thug for hire in liberty city with lots of currupt people and politicians, you almost wonder how the city stays alive. I can go bowling, darts, drinking or racing with my gangsta friends and even call them on fone for a meet. The shooting, hiding and sneaking is done well and puts other games to shame period. My personal favorite is indepedent FM where I can play my own music from my files. Imagine Niko riding with a thug while bumping "The Game". It feels fresh everytime because I can also change the music which brings new game experiences.
Technically GTA IV is pretty good with top notch character animation and overall atmostphere is spectacular. The sound is awesome and this is the game that uses 80% of each core in my AMD Phenom X4 9950BE. I also average at least 20fps minimum with my HD4850. It also uses 2.5Gigs RAM out of 3Gigs RAM
The downside is you need to install rockstars social club and also have a live login so u can earn achievement points and also there will be some disappearing textures and longer loading times but other than that I love this game. My 2008 game of the year.