Completed it the other day.
Very mixed feelings to be honest. But it would be fair to say, that my expectations were REALLY high. And Watch Dogs, does kinda deliver on them. It is a crazy expansive world, with soooo many details – you can profile EVERYONE and get tidbits about them and their life. There’s downtown Chicago, the suburbs and the rural area. You can hack all sorts of stuff, and there are so much to do besides the main story – racing, delivering a car with minimal damage within a time limit, lead the police on a goose chase for some friends that then do criminal stuff, follow a serial killer, follow the guns that undercover cops are sending out unto the market etc. etc.
The graphic are stunning, and with very few exceptions the gameplay work. Yes the driving mechanic is very acade-ish (full speed frontal collision, stops your car with relatively minor damage, but sends the other car skidding backwards about 50-100 meters!).
I did complete it, I was interested in the story, I did complete most of the sidequests – yet still, feel slightly disappointed. It basically comes down to this – the world doesn’t feel living and the proganist doesn’t really engage with me. The world, despite the massive amount to do and all the people going around minding their own business, seems to be created for me to play with rather, than a more organic world that doesn’t care about me. Everyone is ALWAYS talking about surveillance which seems odd. Also the map shows everything you can do, so there’s no exploring to be done.
All in all, it is a really good game, and I can thouroughly recommend it to people who like this sort of game. I had just expected to get more emersed in the world than I did.