I've got about 60 hours logged in Red Dead with probably 50ish dedicated to the story and I am still not finished. It's a game of impressive scope and detail and one I would absolutely recommend but it's got a lot of issues, there's a million reviews that will you tell everything good about it but I want to highlight the bad elements people seem to ignore.
First, and most obviously, the beginning chapters are a bore, they create a poor first impression, they drag on, the gameplay is dull and it's not fun interacting with the characters when you know absolutely nothing about them, it serves as a good tutorial but one that makes you want to avoid playing the story when the world finally opens up. It isn't until chapter 3 that I actually started to become invested in the story, before that point I only did missions in the hopes of getting into fun shootouts and robberies.
Secondly, the controls aren't the best. Unlike most other Rockstar games I actually found this played on keyboard better than controller. Your horse controls terribly at times, often circling back on itself, falling over nothing, veering off to the right when you press left, etc. I can only assume it's a quirk of the game trying to adjust your horse on uneven surfaces but it feels like you fight with the animal most of the time. On foot controls are better but I've had situations occur where my guns that were equipped before I got off my horse become unequipped and likewise when I go to interact with an NPC I accidentally shoot them when I meant to say hello. A lot of issues comes from the way Rockstar has tried to make animations blend together, glitches occur when you go from sprinting to a slow so that your character can believably turn a door knob slowly to get inside, or when looting a body Arthur just locks up and freezes for a few seconds because the body is laying over an object. If you try to aim down sights while friendlies are nearby often times you'll lock onto them and you will need to reposition yourself in order to actually fire at enemies.
The next issue is that the game is too easy. Rockstar games are designed to be story-heavy and accessible, which is fine, but I found some missions to be laughably easy. You'll start to notice that your horse will often steer itself with no regard for your input in missions because it is scripted to do so, you'll notice enemies standing 3ft away from you can't hit you or that they will keep running right at you and dropping dead in the same spot as their allies. Half of the missions in this game could be completed without even seeing the game, if you could only see the mini-map you'd be able to beat them as the mini-map just makes everything trivial. An NPC might ask you to look for something but then game will immediately highlight the exact spot it is at, removing any hint of a brief challenge, it's as if the game doesn't want you to ever fail. There's no mission that I ever struggled with and I probably died less than 10 times in missions. I'm not saying the game needs to be punishing but it feels like Rockstar would have been better off making a movie rather than a game when the gameplay is so light.
Additionally the game is held back by its setting. It's detailed and authentic but it can make for a boring game. There's no variety in weapons, pistols and rifles feel almost indistinguishable at times, there's no variety in the law you fight it's the same gunfight over and over and spending half of every mission on horseback listening to exposition gets tiresome very quick. I'm grateful they included the option of the cinematic camera where you can just let your horse ride without any input but that doesn't make for an engaging game, it's a means of getting around an annoying piece of gameplay. There are better ways to deliver exposition, I became grateful for missions that would skip time and have me start at the location of the mission rather than needing to ride from camp. I also found myself ignoring NPC encounters along routes to missions because often they needed me to travel in the opposite direction I was coming from, something that I didn't want to be slowed down by.
Red Dead Online is a huge let down, not that you should expect much when you compare it to GTA:O. It's typical Rockstar fare: Lock anything fun behind a paywall/grind, do nothing about hackers, add updates to Online and nothing to singleplayer. Anything worth doing requires goldbars which cost money or weeks of grinding, the missions aren't rewarding, the graphics are downgraded for the online portion, the story isn't engaging and the world feels far more empty. It's fun to mess around in it with friends for a while but there's better games to waste your time and money in.
Finally, the PC optimisation is poor, I can only imagine how bad it was on launch. Everytime my game starts my resolution is messed up and I need to adjust it twice for it to work. I also have to alt-tab twice on launch to use the menus. The game has a 50% chance of crashing when loading singleplayer for the first time or a 75% chance of crashing when loading the online portion. Worth nothing if Rockstar servers are down you can't play this game, I really wish you didn't need a connection for offline games.
If you can put up with the first 3-6 hours there is a rewarding experience to be found here, the story gets very interesting, the characters more intriguing and the world is a beautiful backdrop for it all. I would highly recommend it but just be aware of what you're in for.
First, and most obviously, the beginning chapters are a bore, they create a poor first impression, they drag on, the gameplay is dull and it's not fun interacting with the characters when you know absolutely nothing about them, it serves as a good tutorial but one that makes you want to avoid playing the story when the world finally opens up. It isn't until chapter 3 that I actually started to become invested in the story, before that point I only did missions in the hopes of getting into fun shootouts and robberies.
Secondly, the controls aren't the best. Unlike most other Rockstar games I actually found this played on keyboard better than controller. Your horse controls terribly at times, often circling back on itself, falling over nothing, veering off to the right when you press left, etc. I can only assume it's a quirk of the game trying to adjust your horse on uneven surfaces but it feels like you fight with the animal most of the time. On foot controls are better but I've had situations occur where my guns that were equipped before I got off my horse become unequipped and likewise when I go to interact with an NPC I accidentally shoot them when I meant to say hello. A lot of issues comes from the way Rockstar has tried to make animations blend together, glitches occur when you go from sprinting to a slow so that your character can believably turn a door knob slowly to get inside, or when looting a body Arthur just locks up and freezes for a few seconds because the body is laying over an object. If you try to aim down sights while friendlies are nearby often times you'll lock onto them and you will need to reposition yourself in order to actually fire at enemies.
The next issue is that the game is too easy. Rockstar games are designed to be story-heavy and accessible, which is fine, but I found some missions to be laughably easy. You'll start to notice that your horse will often steer itself with no regard for your input in missions because it is scripted to do so, you'll notice enemies standing 3ft away from you can't hit you or that they will keep running right at you and dropping dead in the same spot as their allies. Half of the missions in this game could be completed without even seeing the game, if you could only see the mini-map you'd be able to beat them as the mini-map just makes everything trivial. An NPC might ask you to look for something but then game will immediately highlight the exact spot it is at, removing any hint of a brief challenge, it's as if the game doesn't want you to ever fail. There's no mission that I ever struggled with and I probably died less than 10 times in missions. I'm not saying the game needs to be punishing but it feels like Rockstar would have been better off making a movie rather than a game when the gameplay is so light.
Additionally the game is held back by its setting. It's detailed and authentic but it can make for a boring game. There's no variety in weapons, pistols and rifles feel almost indistinguishable at times, there's no variety in the law you fight it's the same gunfight over and over and spending half of every mission on horseback listening to exposition gets tiresome very quick. I'm grateful they included the option of the cinematic camera where you can just let your horse ride without any input but that doesn't make for an engaging game, it's a means of getting around an annoying piece of gameplay. There are better ways to deliver exposition, I became grateful for missions that would skip time and have me start at the location of the mission rather than needing to ride from camp. I also found myself ignoring NPC encounters along routes to missions because often they needed me to travel in the opposite direction I was coming from, something that I didn't want to be slowed down by.
Red Dead Online is a huge let down, not that you should expect much when you compare it to GTA:O. It's typical Rockstar fare: Lock anything fun behind a paywall/grind, do nothing about hackers, add updates to Online and nothing to singleplayer. Anything worth doing requires goldbars which cost money or weeks of grinding, the missions aren't rewarding, the graphics are downgraded for the online portion, the story isn't engaging and the world feels far more empty. It's fun to mess around in it with friends for a while but there's better games to waste your time and money in.
Finally, the PC optimisation is poor, I can only imagine how bad it was on launch. Everytime my game starts my resolution is messed up and I need to adjust it twice for it to work. I also have to alt-tab twice on launch to use the menus. The game has a 50% chance of crashing when loading singleplayer for the first time or a 75% chance of crashing when loading the online portion. Worth nothing if Rockstar servers are down you can't play this game, I really wish you didn't need a connection for offline games.
If you can put up with the first 3-6 hours there is a rewarding experience to be found here, the story gets very interesting, the characters more intriguing and the world is a beautiful backdrop for it all. I would highly recommend it but just be aware of what you're in for.