The multiplayer is really what makes this game for me. I've spent at least half my time with the game in Online Hacking or Tailing, just invading other people's games or getting invaded. Without that, this would just be another generic open world game but the invasions are where I see most of the really interesting emergent gameplay, where stuff will happen that you just can't plan for. Plus its just really fun to get inside the other player's head. A guy will be about to turn the corner and find me, so I'll hack a steam pipe a block away and then he'll start running in the other direction, stuff like that is super fun.

The way they've integrated it into the single-player helps a lot. If it was walled off in a separate game-mode, I would hardly interact with it. But being able to seamlessly switch from single-player missions to multiplayer without backing out to the main menu makes it all much more convenient.

I've watched my nephew play Online Free-Roam, he's having a lot of fun with that. I think it might be a little too pointless for me.

The online "mobile challenge" was fun once. Don't think I'll play that again.

I've tried to get into Online Decryption mode a few times, but have always had connection issues. Never bothered with Online Racing.

Is anyone else spending a lot of time on the multiplayer?

I liked being invaded by other players but I wish it happened more of the time. There should be options to determine how often you would like to be invaded. The online portions were a lot of fun and weren't huge time syncs. The fact that you could queue for them while playing single player helped a lot.

honestly,if i wasnt buying the game for the single player i would have got rid of it.imo the mutiplayer is really bad(keep in mind im talking about the ps3 version)all you have is races and 1 vs 1 hacking.no free roam and no team hacking,which are the only modes i cared about.races are bad because one the driving isnt that great like others have said and it gets boring real quick.me and my friend tried out the multiplayer and within 20 minutes we both agreed it was crap and got off.1 vs 1 also gets boring real quick.the two modes that would give the game some long term fun wasnt in the game.the best part is the free roam and team hacking could have been in the game.how i know this is because in the racing you can get out of your car and just explore the world.there were not any invisible walls to keep you in,so you could explore till the time ran out.the unlocks were a joke because i only saw 5 unlocks in the whole multiplayer,which is a joke.overall this is one of the worst if not the worst multiplayer ive experienced.ubisoft is actually my fave developer,which is why its sad to me that they did a half ass job on it.made me lose some respect for them.now even on the ps4 and the other new systems where they have those modes.it makes it better but the fact is there is still only around 4 modes,which is a joke because even gta 5 had way more to its multiplayer.gta 5 even with its free roam and all the modes it had still wasnt enough to keep alot of people playing,which is why watch dogs needed WAY more to the multiplayer.some people say that its not a big deal because we bought it for the single player but imo the second the put multiplayer in it it has to be judged as a part of the game.TLDR it sucks.

Invasions are pretty fantastic and a great diversion (though they ALWAYS happen at inopportune times). A good tip though, you can actually use a jammer to delay the hacking if you are getting hacked.

The tailing of other players is incredibly creepy and fun. In fact there is a achievement / trophy for being spied on 5 times. I bet most people don't even know you can be watched without being alerted. It is the best option for messing with players by hacking things near them.

My experience with the racing is bad. A full race drops the frame-rate to single digits when all the cars are on screen and the destruction of so many objects (Xbox One).

The team based objective mode was fun, granted I only played one match and we were extremely out matched.

Overall it is a fun diversion, though I don't see any long term appeal and would imagine it is going to be harder to engage in it within the next few months.

I have mixed feelings about it. I like both the 1v1 hacking and the observation modes because those feel like they integrate the best with the idea of being a hacker. That said, they do seem to have a tendency to occur at the worst times when I really just want to do something else. I've been invaded about 10 times at this point (excepting two that were plot-based NPC invasions), and 3 happened right before I was going to start a mission and 2 others happened right as I was about to hack a ctOS tower. Not sure if it was programmed this way or what, but its really annoying. I wish they had pulled a Dark Souls and included some item you could use to disable invasions for a period so that you could get things done.

I thought the team deathmatch and racing modes were really uninspired. The deathmatch disconnects constantly, and it just isn't very fun to play. The race mode is really generic too. The game could have done without both of those modes.

It's the best part of the game.

@lawgamer: As novel as it was this is the exact reason why I turned invasions off in the menu. I didn't like the feeling of being worried that I'll get pulled into something right as I'm in the middle of doing something else.

I think the hacking and tailing stuff is legitimately neat and happens really seamlessly within the rest of the game. Getting invaded is tense and successfully taking out a hacker is really satisfying. Haven't tried racing yet, but the driving isn't good enough to warrant this mode in the first place. I've played Decryption once and didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't feel like the game presented me with enough information to get a grasp anything that was happening. I could have sworn it was a team-based mode, but the game I was in appeared to be FFA. I still ended up doing alright but I don't know if I'll go back to that.

I think the multiplayer in this game is lame. Also annoying.

The multiplayer component is pretty brilliant. It's not happening that often to me, but if it does it feels special. Being invaded is never bothering me even if it keeps me from doing a mission or something. I just wish it would have more of an impact on the game, like when being tailed the other player could steal money from you or something. Also I remember in some earlier footage the invader and the victim were chasing eachother and having a gunfight, but I guess that's not in the game anymore? (think the victim is invulnerable to gunfire? Or am I wrong?)

It could've been better though. I don't like that the game puts up a 'searching player to hack' thing, it should do that under the hood when you are just playing the game and when they found a player just let it popup as a mission, so when you agree to hack the other player you jump right in. Now the game is searching the other player and you can basically do nothing but wait (can't even shop).
It's also weird you sometimes active that thing by hacking a NPC, but then it goes in search mode again..

I would also like it not having to load and teleport you to 'the other world'. This could be solved by making sure everyone is having the same weather and daytime (like a universal timer for that) and then making sure the 2 players are far enough from eachother to not let them spawn in your sight. So it's just a "ping, here's another player in your world, go get 'm" and you drive to them to do your thing.

More integration would be good, maybe we'll see some more of that in WD2, but it's a good start, really adds something to the game I think!

Some of the online components are fun, but the racing is down right horrible. I was in a motor-cycle race last night, and the frame rate was so laggy my opponents were hitching all over the place. I'm not a huge fan of the driving in this game but adding in an online component like they did feels really tacked on.

I tried it out for the first few hours that I played, but found it disruptive - and the gameplay rather tedious - so I rather quickly turned Online off and didn't turn it back on through completion of the game.

That might be incidental, I've had one 1v1 hacking encounter where the other player jumped all over the map. Other times it was normal. But I have not tried the online racing yet, so I don't know.

@dussck I've played several of the different online components and the racing one was by far the worst. I'd be interested in hearing how it is for others. What I experienced in the racing game I had not experienced in any of the other versions of online play.