While I love the game, I definitely agree with the criticisms around the movement controls and mission design. When it comes to controls, it's absolutely crazy to me that in Rockstar's obsessive pursuit of "realism," they end up creating the silliest, goofiest, and most unrealistic shit ever. You want to open the drawer? Well if you're just two inches from where the animation will play, then you're going to watch Arthur awkward teleport and slide around until he's in the correct place to show you the animation. HOW IS THAT REALISTIC OR IMMERSIVE? It's especially sad that Max Payne 3 controlled so goddamn beautifully on the same engine, with similar cover-based third person shooting combat. I try to run from cover to cover and Arthur just slowly saunters about like he's in town on a cool Sunday afternoon with bullets whizzing by because I forgot to hammer on my A button to make sure he sprints. It's just so awkward and immersion-breaking.
Not to mention their over-reliance on a 24-minute day cycle, which entirely breaks the illusion, and their constant use of fictional states and places to sell their world. For the love of god, Rockstar, just create a region of, say, Colorado. It can still be fictional and feature different biomes, but I have a real hard time believing that this world that I can ride a horse across in twenty minutes is FOUR fucking states. Again, this just breaks the illusion for me, and I don't understand why they couldn't have it set in four different counties of Arizona, or New Mexico, or whathaveyou. GTAV's version of San Andreas is supposed to be an entire state, and it's smaller than the actual city of Los Angeles. I may be in the minority here, but that shit is like a giant spec in my eye that I can't ignore, and it's only further pronounced by their pursuit of realism, which they double down on with each release. Stop trying to sell me on your realistic game with its bullshit fantasy world and fantasy time passage.
And then there's the mission design. I just did a late game mission that involves infiltrating a camp with another gang member. In this mission, you follow the other guy PRECISELY and do literally everything he tells you, including, at one point, shooting a lantern to start a fire. Now... what if the game just let you infiltrate the camp, and left all of these different options as potential things you COULD do? There's a lantern above some ammo boxes, and if you shoot it, you create a distraction. Why guide me very very precisely by the nose? It's crazy that in a world where LINEAR games such as Dishonored and Splinter Cell give players a set of tools and a set of environmental obstacles and allow the player to tackle objectives how they see fit, Rockstar, the goddamn biggest innovators in open world, non-linear design, are forcing players into such insanely narrow styles of play. At times, story missions can feel more like interactive cutscenes than fun open world action.
Nakey Jakey has a fantastic video breaking down issues with the game's mission design where he compares it to Rockstar's own GTA3 and the more recent Metal Gear Solid V (which may well be the best playing third person action game that exists). I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you loved or hated RDR2:
