Good Quote

"Sandbox games used to be largely about making your own fun by taking advantage of a broad set of free-form gameplay tools, but I think Mafia II exemplifies a paradox that's been emerging as these games have evolved, as they've further humanized their protagonists, and rendered their urban environments in more and more lifelike detail. You just can't play this kind of game that carelessly anymore if you care about the underlying narrative. A guy like Vito Scaletta is no longer just a faceless cipher you use to run around wantonly wreaking havoc and killing innocent people. You see him serving in World War II, breaking bread with his meek little Sicilian mamma, looking out for his sister when the loan sharks come calling. The game does a decent job of making him feel like a real person, albeit one leading a morally questionable lifestyle. But either way, he's no fool.

It comes down to a question of how much larger-than-life absurdity you can accept in a story-driven game. Even the most hardened criminal doesn't run around spraying bullets in broad daylight, and given how intently Mafia II focuses on putting you in the role of a single character rising through the ranks in a believable depiction of mob life, it breaks the story's plausibility when you run amok the way you gleefully did in Grand Theft Auto III. Admittedly, it's entirely a matter of personal preference and play style, but I felt boxed in by the relatively realistic nature of the story. That feeling, combined with the lack of explicitly designed side missions and activities, left me to simply play through the story missions in a straight line over a dozen or so hours, watch the ending, and turn the game off."

From Brad Shoemaker's review of Mafia II. A good example of where the open world genre is going wrong nowadays, and an extension of the ideas found in this piece.