GTA is thte type of video game I love to play....you aren't constrained to doing certain choices....you have virtually the ability to do anything you want within the city.
It is free range, not like the old strategy/action games in which you had to make a choice on what to do and you only had 2 options.
I always found it funny that the charachter in the game is not necessarily a bad guy. He's only going out trying to take out criminals, corrupt cops, etc, and trying to protect his family.
It's only what the human player does with the charachter that makes him bad; i.e. random drive bys, screwing hookers and killing them to get your money back...