Like I said, it's strictly a matter of taste.
I got bored pretty quickly with the missions. I felt the shooting/targeting could be improved, and I really wanted a nice stunt system for the cars you steal.
It just seemed to lack the extra flair that attracts me to games.
What do you mean by "nice stunt system"? The cars
And I noticed how you used over the shoulder shooting as a point as to why this series is unoriginal. Since when is the way someone holds a gun in a game a main aspect of a game? You might as well use that argument for pretty much every other game in the world that includes shoulder-mounted weaponry (which is quite a vast majority).
And you act like the GTA has just picked up the sandbox gaming style. The GTA series is one of the original sandbox style games and has pretty much created a pathway for many of today's games. And even if it wasn't original, that doesn't make it fun. Especially when implemented in multiplayer, a full-explorable world is one of the things that makes GTA so great.
And it looks like you completely missed the point when you made the "COPS CHASE YOU" point. For one thing, Hot Pursuit was released quite a while after the first GTA game was made, so don't go saying GTA is the ones being unoriginal here. Second, the act of cops chasing you isn't based primarily on driving a car and running from them. You're supposed to fight back, too. And the cops aren't the only ones in hot pursuit to you. There's the FBI, SWAT Team and the
fucking Army.