The story is quite good and takes place in a very well designed world, with very fitting ambience and equally good gameplay. The graphics still hold up in 2019 and it's a demanding game even for current hardware.

While I think this game is worth getting just for the world/sandbox aspect of it, the story really is the thing that brings it to life. After finishing the story I always feel that the world becomes a bit boring with not much to do, other than going after the many collectibles and easter eggs. Of course, once you get into modding the game, there are many more possibilities. This is a review of the game and not the mods, but note that, in my opinion, it really only becomes a proper sandbox with the help of a trainer.

While the campaign will leave you wishing for more content and "things to do", GTA Online will leave you wondering where your 900 hours went and how you got to level 200 in less than a year, despite you constantly insisting that the game is a broken microtransaction-fueled mess, a grand theft of your time. There is no shortage of content in Online, but things can get a bit repetitive, and be prepared to sink a decent amount of time getting sessions going - even if you already have a group of friends to play with. Certain missions, including some heists, can be impossible quite, uh, challenging to complete with random players. New players looking to make money to buy the interesting "toys" will easily feel overwhelmed; you must look up guides on the best ways to get started, and at the beginning it may feel a bit like a strategy game because of this.

GTA Online has a very advanced meta-game composed solely of looking at clouds, error messages and maniacally spamming the keyboard and controller while waiting for the network code to finally decide you have waited for long enough. Featuring, of course, "Returning to GTA V", where it somehow decides that the best way to fix problems with the multiplayer experience is to throw you back to single-player and have you load Online from scratch.
These problems add considerably to the difficulty of completing heists, as there's no way to resume from a checkpoint after e.g. one of the players gets disconnected, which is very annoying when some missions take well over an hour to complete. All of this applies even if you have a great internet connection.

The "cinematic experience" that turns the story into a masterpiece will leave you raging in GTA Online, as you look at the unskippable animations when entering your garages, bunker, nightclub, etc. for the 300th time. According to cannon, the events in GTA Online precede those in the GTA V, which probably explains why in Online, remote management of your businesses is not a thing: working from home wasn't acceptable back then! So if you wish to own businesses (essentially the only way to make decent amounts of money) be prepared to cross the beautiful open world many, many times.

Definitely get it for the story, for the world, and for the mods, and not for the Online, which is great with friends and might even be where you'll put the most hours, but it's really not the best GTA V has to offer in terms of game quality.

...oh, idling waiting for the bunker to fill up. That's where the 900 hours went.

The story is quite good and takes place in a very well designed world, with very fitting ambience and equally good gameplay. The graphics still hold up in 2019 and it's a demanding game even for current hardware. While I think this game is worth getting just for the world/sandbox aspect of it, the story really is the thing that brings it to life. After finishing the story I always feel that the world becomes a bit boring with not much to do, other than going after the many collectibles and easter eggs. Of course, once you get into modding the game, there are many more possibilities. This is a review of the game and not the mods, but note that, in my opinion, it really only becomes a proper sandbox with the help of a trainer. While the campaign will leave you wishing for more content and "things to do", GTA Online will leave you wondering where your 900 hours went and how you got to level 200 in less than a year, despite you constantly insisting that the game is a broken microtransaction-fueled mess, a grand theft of your time. There is no shortage of content in Online, but things can get a bit repetitive, and be prepared to sink a decent amount of time getting sessions going - even if you already have a group of friends to play with. Certain missions, including some heists, can be [strike]impossible[/strike] quite, uh, challenging to complete with random players. New players looking to make money to buy the interesting "toys" will easily feel overwhelmed; you must look up guides on the best ways to get started, and at the beginning it may feel a bit like a strategy game because of this. GTA Online has a very advanced meta-game composed solely of looking at clouds, error messages and maniacally spamming the keyboard and controller while waiting for the network code to finally decide you have waited for long enough. Featuring, of course, "Returning to GTA V", where it somehow decides that the best way to fix problems with the multiplayer experience is to throw you back to single-player and have you load Online from scratch. These problems add considerably to the difficulty of completing heists, as there's no way to resume from a checkpoint after e.g. one of the players gets disconnected, which is very annoying when some missions take well over an hour to complete. All of this applies even if you have a great internet connection. The "cinematic experience" that turns the story into a masterpiece will leave you raging in GTA Online, as you look at the unskippable animations when entering your garages, bunker, nightclub, etc. for the 300th time. According to cannon, the events in GTA Online precede those in the GTA V, which probably explains why in Online, remote management of your businesses is not a thing: working from home wasn't acceptable back then! So if you wish to own businesses (essentially the only way to make decent amounts of money) be prepared to cross the beautiful open world many, many times. [b]Definitely get it for the story, for the world, and for the mods, and not for the Online, which is great with friends and might even be where you'll put the most hours, but it's really not the best GTA V has to offer in terms of game quality.[/b] [i]...oh, idling waiting for the bunker to fill up. That's where the 900 hours went.[/i]