Getting rid of the pointless open world has significantly improved the pacing. The strategic mode makes taking over rackets feel much less repetitive. There's much more variety with the card system, and it gives you better sense of running a criminal empire, letting you recruit new members, assign them to various tasks and take over territories.

The melee combat is also much more convenient, as the attacks are now bound to keys instead of the analogue stick like in the PS2 version.

Still, the ranged combat is still somewhat problematic, and even more so because of the lack of the right analogue stick. It functions well most of the time, but I've died several times because I couldn't freely control camera and freely aim while moving.