I've been to a number of large cities. The only international cities were in Canada. I don't know what London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, or Tokyo are like.
With that said, NYC is the greatest city. It has every for a city.
You can't compare apples to oranges so there aren't going to be "the great outdoors" kind of things available like hiking the mountains, deer hunting, downhill skiing, and other outdoorsy activities to do.
I was born there and I've visited the city often. There's things I love about it and there are things I hate about it.
I cannot imagine living and working there. Even the DC lifestyle was like that. Expensive cost of living. Traffic everywhere. Forced to use subways with bums everywhere. I hate big city living.
You can't change the city. It changes you.