Online seems to work now, mostly. Every server I jumped into had eight or fewer players. Sixteen is small enough for the city alone, but with eight it felt like a ghost town at times. Another problem that can't be addressed (in this iteration of GTA Online) is how inorganic everything feels. It was pitched like: meet up with friends, go bowling! the actual experience: go stand in this circle, go through menus, stay awhile and listen (to stevie wonder as the game takes several minutes to load in and out of a five second round of arm wrestling). The moments when it works are tons of fun. Simple objectives like 'go steal these cars' is more entertaining when you and another player have an impromptu race to see who gets to the cars first. Then when you collect the cars, you drive off in separate directions to split up the cops chasing you, eventually meeting up at the dealership to get paid. It's just not a very elegant process to get to those objectives.
I'm sure you can have some fun in the open world/sandbox when it's populated. Had a moment where this one guy randomly decided to kill me, and I managed to stay away long enough for him to lose interest. But I followed him a bit, and when he went to buy some clothes, I drove up, shot out his tires, and parked across to street. He managed to get a few feet into the street before all four tires popped. And then I did donuts around his car while he tried and failed to shoot me.
also, if you drive near some sketchy ladies at night, "You need more cash to pick up a prostitute" pops up with the option to spend real money to buy fake money on some virtual prostitutes in your video game
