To me GTA never was realistic, it always felt like a parody, steal a car, run over people, nobody cares, jump off the highest possible building, land on a helicopter, get catapulted across the city, hit a solid steel spike, survive! I feel Saints Row finally did what GTA tried to do, but that's just me.
@seawog: you can co-op the whole Saints Row...sort of what we've been talking about.