Eh, I should expect some downvotes. It is a popular series after all...

The only GTA game I played through fully I did so at a pretty young age, and don't really remember much to be critical of their mission structure, to be honest. And the early ones didn't have that rich of a story to begin with.

My complaint is more like a lack of interest in the main gameplay of the series: the roaming around a relatively realistic city being a nuisance to people. It never appealed to me. Even when it's just crimes, I just kept feeling like I'm doing a job rather than playing a game. I guess open world games set in the modern day world just don't have any hooks for me... I'm just surprised that this is not a common opinion, clearly! :D

a lot of people do dislike the franchise for multiple reason, the mission structure being one.

I played Dragon's Dogma 2, and realized that has the kind of mission structure that I would really love in a GTA or RDR game. Even if the missions in DD2 weren't all that great themselves, they didn't end the mission and send you back to the start even if an important character died. The quests weren't quarantined off in a part of the open world, they were embedded within it.

What other game could I actually go into anyone's home and see exactly how they live? What other game could I play that lets me pick up and look at, in detail, anything that isn't nailed down (forks, pieces of paper, charcoal, etc)? What other games create a living breathing world where characters have full schedules and lives programmed into them (more games are coming out with these types of features though)?

People just like being able to exist in a detailed world like that, and almost no other game comes close to that level of immersion imo.

In case of E33, I'm mostly surprised how much mainstream popularity it gained despite being a timing-based JRPG. Is that not weird? I find that to be a small miracle how popular it got given the pretty niche genre.

(Admittedly I also found the E33 combat system to be rather dreary, but the story was an unquestionable ride.)

Yep. Played Vice City a lot as it was popular among my peer group when I was starting out. Played San Andreas for at least a dozen hours or so. When friends compelled me to try out GTAV as it came out I couldn't do it for more than one sitting.

The storyline aspect I should've mentioned in my original comment that I understand the appeal of, even though it's very much not for me. But so much of the game is the sandbox rather than the scripted plot, yet it's the sandbox that I can't find any interest in whatsoever.

The funniest thing is that I played through Saints Row 4 in its entirety and enjoyed it a lot. Not because of its cheesy comedy, but simply because stomping around a city destroying alien armies with superpowers was still fun for me. I can't imagine playing that series before it jumped that shark.

I also think gta is way overrated and I have the vice city cd soundtrack box 😉.

I find more entertainment in saints row, but the whole open world stuff brought me to the conclusion there are people like me where open world is a negative attribute.