Wow. The fact that nobody talks about this one is staggering to me. The story is amazing, the characters are fun. Niko Belic is my favorite protagonist so far, he's built up really well and his character is very fleshed out. More than any other protagonist I've played as. The radio is much better too especially with the talk shows, I just wish there were more of them, the soundtrack is also amazing too.
Graphics do take a hit. Even for an early 360 game it looks very crummy and the frame rate isn't any better than the last gen games. I highly recommend playing on a series x or PC since that has an uncapped frame rate which makes most missions actually tolerable.
I highly recommend this game to be your first gta game. It has great story. A great world to explore and great characters, with enty of useful cheats whenever you get stuck. More people need to talk about his one