Cliffnotes:
- Only a few seconds of load time to start the game (so no picture slideshow like GTA)
- No noticeable hitches in framerate in seven hours of play time
- Only real loading comes from fast travel
- Very little pop-in despite the draw distance
- Very detailed texturing with smooth load-ins
- No two areas of the map are alike. Everything is unique.
- The game is generous with mid-mission checkpoints and if you fail you can restart from the last checkpoint
- Dying warps you to your nearest owned or rented property, and there is ample property to buy
- In your safehouse you can restock on ammo, sleep (which saves and fast forwards the game clock by six hours) and change clothes
- Robust clothing options, though nothing super specific like mixing and matching
- Can visit general stores, gun shops, clinics, the tailor and more.
- Can buy chewing tobacco, apples (to feed your horse), medicine (to heal yourself) and bandannas (to disguise yourself)
- Money is harder to come by than in GTA but its more useful
- Can sell items you find, along with animal skins
- Loads of sidequests to be discovered by simply exploring and living in the world with less repitition and more depth than you'd think
- The difficulty system is based on how much computer assistance you get in the aiming. The easiest difficulty is full lock on, the hardest is full free aim
- "This isn't just "GTA in the West", it's a genre-defining experience that utterly raises the bar for all open-world games to follow."
From here
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21042246&postcount=4082I can't believe how excited I am for this game, haven't been like this since I was
a kid! Thats eased some of my potential concerns about the game, like the framerate for instance. That post also mentions how much more varied and deep the missions and side missions are compared to GTAIV.
Can't wait.