I was very disappointed with this game, as i waited for so long for a good prequel, but was rewarded with mediocre game.
I was awfully disappointed when i actually got started. First off, the graphics were actually almost at the same level as Saints Row 2, and even worse at some points. Many of the features had been removed, for instance, many radio channels were removed and that was what me and my friends would listen to and laugh at in the previous version.
The gameplay is the same pretty much, not much has changed. The story was the most horrible part. In Saints Row 2 the game was outrageous, which brought its fun, but it was balanced, so it had a good story with valid choices and a fulfilling and everything done in the game seemed to have reason. In this version, much of the story is removed and just replaced with silly, mindless killing with absolutely no sense of balance and no sense of a real story whatsoever. The side quests are shoved down your throat and are mandatory, which just makes the game into a repetitive chore and many of the older fun side-missions were removed, like septic avenger and crowd control.
So in overall i have absolutely no clue why this game got an 8.5/10 rating, when saints row 2 got an 8/10 rating, because it was a chore for me to finish this game and took hours of just plain frustration to be able to get to at least one good part. If you are looking to feed your hunger for Saints Row originality, you wont find it in this game.
P.S. : This is my own opinion, and i know it will not match the opinions of others, but feel free to buy the game and try it out for yourself.