Few games get so roundly trounced only to be have praise heaped upon them as GTA IV, so depending on how you rate it Niko could be one of the most underrated characters instead. Still, if we go with the critical reception it's easily one of the most well-received titles of all time, with perfect scores across the board. That means potato-faced Bellic is one of the greatest characters in the history of the medium - which even to fans of this entry in the series will admit, is pushing it a bit. You can easily see what Rockstar were going for with the more serious direction of IV, but making the transition from the characterful and charismatic CJ from San Andreas, to the fairly dour and utterly unmemorable Niko, is easily one of the weirdest followups we'll ever see. It's commendable that a vastly different approach was applied to such a powerful intellectual property, but for the most part it backfired, as the vast majority of people end up remembering characters like cousin Roman constantly prompting for side-activities, or the steroid-loving Brucie's fantastically-animated cutscenes. Some loved GTA IV's overall tonality specifically because it got away from how insane San Andreas was becoming, with others wanting more of the same - where do you stand on how IV looks now that we've seen Rockstar go back to the crazy last year?
