Technical issues on PC make this one frustrating.
But various technical issues leave the game buggy and somewhat crash prone, making it as frustrating as it is exciting.
The mission objectives tend to feel repetitive at times, but there are enough genuinely imaginative ones mixed in to keep the experience from becoming utterly mundane. Plus, the game's 'sandbox' layout means that in most cases you can be as ingeniously inventive as you want so that playing the same mission over can in fact feel like a different experience.
The attention to detail is remarkable - Liberty City and its inhabitants feel like an organic entity, living and breathing, responding to your actions in often unexpected ways.
However, despite the availability of a number of tweaks, you never can quite be sure the game isn't going to crap out on you at an inopportune time.
And did i forget to mention the complete and utter lack of AA and AF in this game? For high end video configuration options like that to be missing on ANY PC game, let alone such a high profile one is simply criminal. The overall graphics on the PC version of this game may be comparable to the console but they SHOULD be far superior. It doesn't make the game unplayable but I have to say, if I'd known beforehand I probably would have avoided this title.
Were it not for these things - and the fact that to get the most out of it as it is you'll STILL want to drop a mint on a high end video card - I'd give it a nine.
As it is, Se7en is all it gets.