You were the one dissing GTA and I'm sorry, but gta is so far a head of saints row that it's not even remotely close. I've only ever finished the story of one gta game, because I didn't like it in the other games, but I still spent a ton of time in all of them despite that, because the world is so immersive and there's so much to do in there.

The stories in saints rows feel like they just put all the ideas in the game and give no thought if it fits the game at all. I have adhd and they still always manage to overwhelm me with so much senseless crap going on at all times. You just end up zoning out and not focusing on the story at all. I've never managed to play any saints row for longer than a few hours because of that. Meanwhile I've spent many times more than that in all gta games, outside the story, just exploring and messing around. You can easily spend more time just messing around in GTA than it would take to finish a story in saints row.

I like to play games where you can spend time doing stuff between the story missions, instead of just running from one mission to another. That really gets you immersed and makes it an unforgettable experience. I've played over 400 hours of gta v and every time I open the game, I still keep finding new stuff I haven't seen previously in that game. Saints row doesn't come even close to achieving that.

Saying that saints row is the game gta wants to be, implies that gta wants to be some cheap brainless entertainment that you forget in a day after playing it, which isn't true. They have ambitions beyond that and it clearly shows in their product.