>>510
I feel the opposite. I love open-world, but the reason I don't like GTA is exactly because I feel it's too linear for an open-world game.
There's really not much else to do besides following the main mission, although there are side-missions spread across the map, they always feel so poorly written and they are just there so the game can feel more content rich than it really is, and even the main mission don't really offer the player any meaningful power of choice.
My favorite open-worlds are the immersive sims like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Bethesda games and sandbox ones like Minecraft where you really have an almost infinite range of choices on how to play the game and can have fun even if you don't follow the main quest(so much that I almost never finish these games even after spending 100+ hours in it
)
I see Rockstar games more as technology show off. I enjoy seeing their over-detailed landscapes, complex NPC behaviors, wildlife or whatever more they bring.