I didn't like GTA IV either. I managed to soldier on till the last island before selling the 360 way back when, but I was playing largely out of love for the games that came before it. I did re-purchase it for PS3 and never made it off the first island. It's just... dull.

This seems very different. Obviously it's the same engine as GTA IV, but it's far from just a reskin. The controls seem much better than GTA's (the only shootin' I've got as far as doing was killing the rabbits and coyotes on horseback at the MacFarlane ranch, so right at the very start of the game then), but the controls seem great. The dead-eye mechanism works brilliantly. It did take me a little while to get my head around the horse controls too, but they seem pretty good also.

I guess, in summary, it's like this: GTA IV had a great engine in terms of creating a believable world, but the world it created was dull and mundane and the whole shebang was let down by ropey controls. This has the same engine, but now put to use recreating the Old West, with cowboys and wilderness and bandits and stuff, where the controls have been honed and hugely improved. Does that sound like something you might like, stranger?