abundant said:Genre expectations. Most reviewers have a certain expectation on what a open world game should be, in their opinion. Brad highlighted this big time in the GB Quicklook when he said it was fine back then when Mafia I came out to have an open world with nothing to do, but in 2010, he thinks it's bad.
Thats pretty narrow point of view to say that every open world game has to have a lot of different things to do in them. Different games have a different focus even if they are in the same genre. I personally didn't enjoy GTA4 much so this narrative driven gameplay is right up my alley.