try to let go of the unexplainable hate and tell me FROM YOUR HEART how much you love this game. im tired of all the hate talk 
 
a fucking 11 for me.

It's my favourite of the GTA series in a way, I love the characters, especially Niko who remains one of my favourite video game characters ever, the scenario they're put in and just the game in general. Unlike a lot of people I didn't miss the "crazy" nature of previous titles and welcomed the more serious tone of the game. I happened to really enjoy both episodes as well. Man... I hope we'll get a GTA V announcement next year. 
 
An 11 easily.

4 
 
The general movement felt stilted, shooting kinda sucked, and it was a whole world full of "You can do all this shit, but why would you want to?" 
 
It wasnt for me

I don't.

9 for me. I love it quite a lot. And I'm gonna play it right now.

I really liked the engine in that you can just stumble around and fall spectacularly, but the game part was terrible and boring and the story was not silly AT ALL

It was an 8 for me, very good not great. On first impressions it was an 11 though, it just wore thin. 

9. The characters were the best thing about it. I felt the type of missions could have been a bit more varied though.

I liked the more consistent and serious tone, but I never finished it.

My love goes further than numbers.

I give it about a 7.  Awesome story, but it's just very overrated as a GAME.  I'll most likely never go back and play it again because it's just not as FUN as a game like Saints Row 2, or even San Andreas.

6. I don't think I like open world games at all.

" My love goes further than numbers. "

" My love goes further than numbers. "

I didn't like it. I borrowed it from a friend about 3 months ago, still haven't finished it. The missions sucked, the story wasn't all that great and the controls felt very outdated. It had promise, but it lacked that certain something.

Mechanically good, but I hated the storyline in the OC.

I gave it a 9 just cause how awesome of a game it is and I still need to beat it. I think I'm around 60% in the game, it's long lol.

It hasn't aged as well as I thought it would, but I still like it.  9

9. It was the first GTA game i could play for hours and not get bored of it after a few missions due to the characters being so good and me actually caring about the story.

A solid 9 to be sure. Just started going back to finish up BOGT and it's still solid, a bit rough around the edges compared to RDR though (especially the cut scenes....ooof GTA IV).

8.
 
It tried to be very real, and at the same time tell a story that's not.
The crappy checkpoint system made me never finish it (that, and my flatmate that broke it...), but I can appreciate it for what it is, a great piece of work.

I never understood the amount out hate people had for this game. I loved the hell out of it. Probably one of my favorite games ever. 
 
i get why the story might not resonate with some people, but that's the nature of fiction. If you don't have a certain perspective, it's not going to mean much to you. I was genuinely emotional about how the game played out. They could have cut out a couple chunks in the middle of the game, but the first 1/3 and last 1/3 were absolutely forceful. It was a story about redemption where nothing went right. It was oppressive, but well told.   
 
Then again, maybe I do understand why people hated it. Shit started out bad for Niko, and it only got worse. 
 
As for the actual gunplay, it was passable. It didn't really need more. It would have been nice, but it was good enough to get you through the story, which was the real gem of the game. Nothing was broken about the game, so it worked for me. 

" I don't. "

I give it a nine.
 
I can't think of many games I could say this about but to have made it a 10/10 for me would have been more about removing stuff than adding or fixing. I just found the social stuff was too distracting.

"  but I can appreciate it for what it is, a great piece of work. "

That's a 4. It just never grabbed me, I guess you have to know the real LA in order to fully enjoy it. Also, killing civilians got old quickly. No chainsaw? No rocket pack? No amok time? Come on …

8/10. I can still play it through it with no trouble, either. Especially the DLC expansions.

8/10. 
 
Solid gameplay, but nothing really grabbed me like previous GTA games.

10. One of the greatest stories i've ever seen in a videogame with characters i actually cared about.

I gave it a 9. I liked it a lot however its not my favourite in the series. Add the expansion packs and I will rack it up 10.

" 4  The general movement felt stilted, shooting kinda sucked, and it was a whole world full of "You can do all this shit, but why would you want to?"  It wasnt for me "

I hated it. 

6, played it alot and i'm starting to get tired of it. I think episodes from liberty city or just cause is way more fun.

The controls are way too clunky, especially the driving controls. The car chase missions are a pain.

3.
 
Didn't like the driving or the movement. Shooting was competent, but not that fun.

10. It was an amazing experience that was a step away from perfect.

I really had a fun time with the single player and the free mode lead to many late nights laughing hysterically with friends at the crazy stuff we were doing. Great game, but nothing in the series beats San Andreas.

surprising that it got an 11 out of 10 
 
yay. 
  

9 for me

I gave it a 9, but when i think about it its an 8. I begin to think its overrated, but once I go back and play I'm astounded by the atmosphere in GTA IV. Probably the best atmosphere in all of videogames. The gameplay was fine, it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad either.

I LOVED IT ALOT 11!

I give it a well deserved 10. It fixed all my gripes with the previous games (Shitty combat, etc.) and added a more serious tone, which I vastly prefer over the silly chainsaw killing, area 51 raiding ridiculousness off the previous games. To sum it up.
 
GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas = Quantity
GTA IV = Quality.

I'll give it a 9 since I got a ton of enjoyment out of it. Had some awesome moments with a friend in free mode too.

I still really like it.  I was just playing it with my friend.  We did the old, rampage until death game. 

it was decent at first but then it soured. i hated every character from niko to fatass cousin to jamaican who has to use ebonics in txt messages to remind you that he's jamaican and so on and so forth. the missions were dull. there was a lot of stuff to do and no reason to do it - why go play darts with irritating  video game characters when i can do it in real life with my friends? why watch video game tv shows made by rockstar writers who think they're funny (the same guys who think naming a team '69ers' is hilarious) when i can watch tv shows that are actually good and written by more qualified people?
 
in the end it turned out to be fun to be an asshole - punch someone, run away, then let them punch you in front of a cop. when they're getting arrested, interrupt the animation, and watch them get chased and gunned down. shove people around - and off bridges. bludgeon people with their own cappucino cups. but actually playing through the game? eh, no thanks.

9, its pretty awesome...

"It was an 8 for me, very good not great. On first impressions it was an 11 though, it just wore thin.  "

One of my favourite games ever.

I would give it a 7. It had one of the best video game stories ever told, but the gameplay was very "meh" and it aged very fast. Many open world games came after that had better gameplay mechanics.