RDR2 suffers heavily from the same problem as GTAV's single player mode: it's a movie posing as a video game and both aspects suffer for it.

RDR2 would have been great if it was just the part where you wander around tracking critters and collecting flowers and playing cowboy dress-up, but the game really doesn't want you to do that. Not to belabor the point, but between how unpredictable the connection between "interact with item/character X" and "start mission with character Y" can be and the game's tendency to fail missions the second you go off-script, RDR2 often felt like it was directed by someone who actively resented the concept of player agency.

My friends love it, but two hours in, I just feel worn.

Then I just drop it and never look back.

Can't get it to stick.

My main grip with this game is how slow ans cranky everything feels. I miss the arcade feel of RDR1.

I still mostly enjoyed it, but I do agree that it's way overhyped. The game has a ton of great and fun moments, but it also has so much filler that causes the sense of progression to really grind to a halt.

It's a game that IMO would have benefited from leaving some parts on the cutting room floor, but otherwise it's not a bad game.

Same here. It was so frustrating trying to play it.

Here's a pretty awesome looking intricate and interesting world. No, you can go over there. Or there. Or do that

I‘m with you. I don‘t get why so many people praise the story and the gameplay.

The mission design is very disappointing. You have this beautiful open world with so many systems that you can interact with. It can be fun to just start some shit and watch the chaos unfold. But the second you start a mission, everything is scripted and like on rails. You have no real freedom whatsoever in how you want approach a mission. The missions are also not challenging in the least (apart from some jank here and there). It‘s mostly just one turkey shoot after another.

I made it through to the end. I had to see for myself where they are going with the story. But I was kind of glad when it was over.

I wish another studio could license the world that Rockstar have created and make a game that is actually good. But that is never going to happen.

Rockstar has been moving that way in general for years. They get so focused on the immersive and sim stuff, they forget that they made their name on over-the-top chaotic fun. Everything from GTA4 onward suffers for it, other than RDR1 that struck a decent balance between the approaches.