Sleeping Dogs was great and while both are sandbox games, its qualities and focus were very different from GTA. Sleeping Dogs lacks the scale and variety but focusing on fewer aspects worked out better for them in those departments. I'd say the fighting (especially the fighting), driving and shooting were all better in SD than in GTA. And let's not pretend the free running doesn't shyt all on GTA's awful "miss the timing on jumping a waist high wall and slam into it and fall to the ground" mechanics. I'm not gonna say that SD was a better game overall because GTA just kills it in scale/content/graphics/story/missions, but SD handled its basis gameplay elements a lot better.