It's a game developed by a British team, set in America. Beautifully designed graphics, a masterpiece of entertainment media.
It has many areas of comedy, and can be played as you choose.
You can wander around violently abusing everything you come across, ....or you can hike along endless mountain and forest paths, explore river creeks, lakes or ocean in various watercraft, spend hours in a clothes shop, hairdresser or car garage choosing outfits or car modifications. You can play tennis, golf, cycle about, buy properties, play ingame car races or challenging missions, you can fly various aircraft, and of course drive every type of vehicle you can think of.
There's no clearly denominated religious buildings in the game (so no blowing up mosques for obvious reasons) and no in-game child characters/schools.
There's profuse swearing from the off in every interaction where you accidentally knock into someone for instance, or you can actively avoid aggressive behaviour.
There's lots of smut and innuendo in the shop signs and advertising hoardings (the game is British created, not American, so has some irony) which a kid may or may not get. See picture for what we think is the most rudest example.
You can choose to have lap dances or enter pole dancing clubs, where there's topless women sometimes. Or you can choose not to. There's no raping of prostitutes as is often suggested on here. You can buy their services where the animation is a bit pathetic, with the prostitute clearly mocking their customer.
Point blank shooting characters in the face, or stabbing, or other assorted violent assault, with mild blood gore
If the mic is turned on, you'll hear other online players from various nationalities chatting out loud, sometimes adults, sometimes kids, and you'll hear swearing, racial abuse, every so often creepy men winding kids up using sexual innuendo.
There's a LOT of kids who sound under twelve and they spoil the game for other adult users.
Torture scene: it's compulsory. You'll witness electrodes on nipples, breaking knees with monkey wrench, pulling teeth out, wrapping petrol soaked towel around someone's head. The victim doesn't die. Prior to this he's rear-ending someone's wife then stamps him on the head to death.
I know, you wouldn't believe you can also just wander around aimlessly obliviously to all violence and just look at pretty skies and traipse your way through bluebell woods!
If you're thinking of buying this for your child just because all his friends play it, then be aware that they WILL be subjected to highly adult content. Would you buy them an eighteen labelled movie, if not, don't buy them an eighteen labelled video game either.
There's no twelve year old child in the world that won't go into this game and not run about all guns blazing shooting up everyone he sees and deliberately seeking out the nudey ladies or running over a pedestrian just to hear them call him a f*ing *anker. We haven't seen a kid in the game yet who's just wandering around looking at the pretty sunsets and picking flowers...
The game was designed for adults, with adult content, and reflects real life to a degree. Under 18s are not permitted to participate for a reason.
I hope this helps clear up all the misconceptions about this game that are often published on here, and confirms once and for all that any adult who allows a child to play an 18 labelled video game WILL be subjecting them to adult content and themes that are SHOCKING, VIOLENT and SEXUAL.