the lost and damned is pretty awesome, enjoy!
I got Gay Tony on day 1 and I just haven't gotten around to it. I was kinda put off by reviews saying it's not as good as TLAD.
My impression was that it wasn't also. I love TLAD but I put down Gay Tony after a few hours in. I'll eventually get back to it and there were things I liked about it, but it didn't capture me in the way that TLAD did. It has more "crazy" stuff in it than TLAD but I don't think its quite as unified as a game.
But then I'm of the few people on GAF or over here that liked the more straight ahead approach of GTA 4 in general.
I agree with the first part of your post. I thought The Lost and Damned was way better than Gay Tony. For all the "crazy" stuff they seemed to introduce in Gay Tony, none of the controls or core gameplay was there to support it. I did like the cast of characters, though. Thought the cast of Gay Tony was better than Lost and Damned, and thought Lost and Damned was better than GTA4.
All in all, I thought Lost in Damned is the best "GTA4" out of the bunch.
Will maybe get it during a steam sale.