Red Dead Redemption II: Grand Theft Horsey V...

And I can already smell the torches and pitchforks...
It's kinda hard to do this review, because I LOVE RDR2, but I ALSO HATE RDR2... Right out of the gate, I'm conflicted and I can see the torches getting closer. The game is awesome, but flawed... Some of these "flaws" are "nitpicks" others are real issues that fans are trying to gloss over... like the many glitches the game has. But let's get on with the review...

As with most game reviews, whenever I use the rating system, it's on a 1-10 scale.

Graphics:
The graphics are beautiful, detailed, and aside a few random glitches and occasional hiccup, they are a decent approximation to the real world without falling in the uncanny valley. The world is a thing of beauty and most characters look like real people instead of blatant stereotypes... (they are being a bit more subtle than the PS2 era and even PS3... The stereotypes are there, but the stereotypes are more in the behavior, than the visuals.) Something about perfection in imperfections if I were some sirt of writer is what I would say... and with that horribly constructed sentence; I have proof that I'm not a writer.
9.5

Sounds and Music:
Like its predecessor, the ambient music is very fitting. It has a bit of a Spaghetti Western but it's NOT in your face about it, like say GTA Vice City with their 80s, 80s, 80s... (I'd love to see a Vice City for the HD era.)
The use of actual Country songs for certain Key Scenes, remind me of the whole Compass on RDR.
The voice talent outdid themselves... except maybe a few background pedestrians that sounded a bit too acted...
9.5

Gameplay:
Take Red Dead Redemption and GTAV it... but without the character swapping "at will". Like the previous RDR, once you stop playing as Arthur, you can't go back...
The Map is bigger... it fits all of West Elizabeth at the southwestern corner of it... Mexico is kinda there, but not accessible unless you glitch into a Barren Mexico... the point is that the entire RDR1 map IS in RDR in addition to the "new frontier" which is all the new zones beyond Blackwater. I mentioned the map size because all the stuff you did in RDR (treasure hunting, creature hunting, herb gathering, etc.) You HAVE TO DO HERE and the world is MUCH, MUCH BIGGER! More galloping and once your horse dies, they are forever dead.
Almost all the minigames from the previous game return... No liar's dice... *sniff* but we have like 4 variations of dominoes...

The game seems to be in "tutorial mode" all the way to the epilogue. Heck at times it feels like a reskinned RDR1, seeing that it borrows a lot from the previous game. But at times it feels like a completely different game when it uses the new features...
I hate the forced eating and sleeping to stay healthy dynamic. Especially when in the wild doing the Legendary Hunts. Then there's the thing with your travel provisions not being "healthy" compared to saloon food. Or selecting a set if weapons to be your "defaults" and when you get of your horse due to a mission, you "forget" the long range weapons because they were on the Horse... then we have ridiculously LONG missions that feel even longer due to the lack of "fast travel". Riding 7-9 minutes to reach a mission marker from camp is not fun... (when time off is very limited)

So, as much as it pains me, here RDR2 gets an 8.5

Controls:
For the most part, they are pretty good! I have very little complaints here... Mainly the parts where controls say: "Screw you Arthur! You aren't doing that, you're going to do this instead!"
Here's a more concrete example:
You're in a town, leading a Horse to a hitching post because for some reason, the horse won't be able to hitch if you're riding it. So, you arrive to the hitching post and press the command to hitch the horse. As you're doing that, a pedestrian gets between you AND the post, so Arthur, due to your button press instead chokes the nice old lady and now the Sheriff is shopting at you... All You wanted was to hitch the horse in order to buy some food... Now you are getting out of Dodge while being chased by the law... Like George of the Jungle, watch out for that tree!
Now you're thrown off your horse down the hill aaaand you're dead...
9.0

Fun factor:
Your Mileage may vary here. Some people LOVE the long rides from A to B then the mission sends you to abpoint C that was between A and B. Others do not... They also derest how EVERYTHING HATES YOUR GUTS!
Damn those deer, goats, Moose, and all the other jerk animals that greet me with headbutts ALL THE TIME!
8.0

Story:
I nearly forgot the big one... The Wild West is being tamed... Outlaws are hanging on to their old ways in a world where they have no place in. We see the harsh way in which taming the West is destroying the livelihood of the Van Der Linde gang. We see the descent into madness that the leader, Dutch suffers as he turns into the sort of antagonistic role from the Original Red Dead Redemption.
We see this through the eyes of Arthur Morgan, a member of the gang, who notices Dutch's change in behavior and also has to battle with his own demons.
10.0

Overall:
RDR2 gets an 9.08 as its final score. It's not so much the slow pace (I love Shenmue and many old school JRPGs) but the lack of freedom... which is weird in an open world game. Maybe it was due to it being my first play through, but I kinda felt mostly "on-rails" trudging through the story mode with very few breathers allowed to do sidequests... and those kinda felt like a chore...
Maybe RDR2 is like an acquired taste, but right now I don't feel a desire to replay it...
I'm saving the Epilogue discussion for a different rant.