Actually, I played some today at James' house.
1) Klye's an idiot, the driving is freaking awsome
2) Core gameplay is improved, but still GTA, for good or bad; driving good, shooting bad (very bad, the only people who say otherwise are those who put up with it through previous GTA games).
3) online (PSN, lol) was fun, there IS a lot of potential here, or would be given your opinions on option 2. I mean, killing someone by accidently rolling over them on my roof WAS cool, but the cops/robbers game was over in exactly 3 minutes because I found a rocket launcher.
Ignoring the campain, it's all the same stuff we've done before except in an open world with awsome driving but crappy shooting.