- The cops. The fucking cops. It takes a while to lose them, and the game tells you at the beginning that after you exit the flashing red/blue spot you can hide in places. Except this doesn't work all the damn time, since either cops will spawn just near you, or know your hiding spot even no matter how secluded it is and a cop will go by your place. And no, there's not even a "last seen going on" chatter. They just seem to magically know where you are. To a lesser extent, but still annoying, they'll ram you aggressively in the rear too. And these fuckers start to pack heat at 2 stars which can happen easily, and oh, some of them will be carrying shotguns which are very lethal in this game. They are accurate with guns, even when you're going fast inside a vehicle. And they tend to shoot the tires off your car.
- Many missions don't pay out, making you rely on heists and business. You'll have to manage your money but it's a far cry from past GTA games where if you do enough errands you'll be able to save a lot of money. There are various ways to get money, but Michael has the least options. They're really pushing hard the heists (which are limited) and stock buy/sell, which can be only done late game easily.
- The absolute need for cover and regenerating health makes this game similar to CoD for me. You die off quickly on this game, compared to past titles and this is something I can never get used into. And like cops, most enemies are fucking accurate. It would be understandable if you are facing off law enforcement, soldiers or those private army guys, but gangsters being this accurate ruins the "realism" if this is what they're aiming for. But hey, at least you have the special abilities, and for both Michael and Trevor it really helps a lot.
- Finally, the original score. If you're doing a mission, chances your radio will be off and the game will be replacing the banger you're listening to with the game soundtrack. Or if you are being chased by cops and get off your car and get back which is fucking stupid. It plays on every single damn thing, on every small mission you enter into while on free roam (like those property missions) and sometimes, they don't fit at all! Almost all of them sound like SimCity background music bullshit and sound underwhelming on the scenes they play on, especially compared to most music on the radio (or your music if you have put any, for sure). Not only they seem shoehorned and forced, you can't even hear them clearly alongside the stuff going with the game! So they're horribly mixed for the game too.
They do fit on some moments, like that scene where you drive back to that snowy town and Trevor chasing some Lost MC, which actually sounds awesome. But the rest, nah. I don't know why the music works that way here and you can't turn them off, and I can't even find a mod that fully fixes this behavior; just the one that replaces these tracks with silence. Rockstar probably went lazy and fucked up here, or they had a contract with the band(s) who made those tracks which I believe plenty if not all was made by Tangerine Dream to have their soundtrack used like this. I haven't heard of these guys until now but after some searching around, they seem to have some good reputation. But on this game, their tracks have a lot to compete against.
There are some stuff about the story but plenty of people threw shade and stuff at that already, but these ones I feel deserve more spotlight, especially the music. Seriously the music sounds like some Sims shit.
