Yeah, the goal of “pull off the biggest heist” isn’t particularly exciting for me, especially since money is never an issue in the game.

GTA III and IV are about immigrants who are looking for an honest restart to their life and get pulled into a life of crime. They rise through the ranks so they can get enough power and influence to knock out their masters and truly be free. GTA SA is about trying to do what’s best for your neighborhood (friends and family), then you get betrayed and seek vengeance, again to do the best for your family. Those are good reasons to keep playing, since the player has an emotional attachment to the goal.

V’s goal of getting rich by pulling off a massive heist isn’t particularly interesting, especially when there are only a handful of non-replayable heists in the game. I honestly don’t want Michael to succeed because he’s such a dick, I just want him to go away so Trevor and Franklin’s more interesting stories can play out. But the game ends right after the big heist, and that’s just lame. Neither Trevor or Franklin went into the game wanting to pull off a big heist, so their story arcs seemed woefully incomplete.

So yeah, V is the most disappointing from a character and story perspective. I’ll probably replay the earlier ones, I’m not going to bother w/ GTA V.