I haven't played a GTA since Vice City so I'm not sure how it compares to recent ones but I enjoy the three character switches. Each character is completely different than the other two so depending on what you enjoy doing in the game you can just play that character.
Yeah, same for me. I wasn't even planning on getting this, but between all the commercials and the fantastic reviews, I had to give it a shot. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about switching between 3 characters, but I really enjoy it. All 3 are really interesting and different from one another, with their own stuff going on, as well as the connections to the other 2 that I'm sure will only get more interesting as I play through the story.
The thing I love about GTA games is that you can sit down for a few hours and play missions, or you can sit down for a few hours and not do one mission and do all kinds of different things. I saw somewhere that the overall size of the map is bigger than RDR and 2 of the other GTA games (can't remember which) COMBINED. Meaning, I've just scratched the surface!