I was able to finish the main story of Grand Theft Auto IV. I found the story to be pretty grounded and enjoyable, granted I had to suspend the impact of the game play aspect. The struggles of an immigrant trying to make his way in Liberty City and the choices he had to make along the way had me wanting to play from story beat to story beat.
I did occasionally just go off the rails and do the crazy stuff you can do in a GTA game just to see what was possible and that was fun. I will say that the music in the game when driving around was varied and enjoyable. I did restore the removed tracks when I found out the selection was missing some and that greatly improved the choices of music playing. Even the talk radio stuff was humorous to me.
I will say the weakest part of the game for me in 2025 is the actual game play itself. It just felt so clunky sometimes. Walking, running, unarmed combat, shooting, hiding in cover and driving were not the worst I've ever experienced, but definitely towards the bottom considering other games of the time as well as games that are out now.
All in all I would definitely still recommend a play through of this game for its story and I am glad that I did.