I think part of it is "Open World Overload" and also the fact that I really didn't care about any of the characters in RDR2 much at all, especially in camp. Comparing RDR2 to GTAV in the early game is night and day.
I agree that the world is amazing to look at, but the game manages to feel like a chore at least to me with all the gun cleaning, horse brushing, camp management etc. Maybe I'll give it another go when I have some time but on PC. The frame rate on PS4 is horrible and another gripe I had.
I've gone back to playing shorter, more "on-rails" stuff with an ending recently and it's a real tonic.
Yeah, I interspersed my early time in the game with shorter, more focused games as well. I'd do like 45 minutes in RDR2, get a bit bored and then spend hours having a blast in Sunset Overdrive or Titanfall 2. That probably did help with the early feelings of aimlessness with the game. At some point all the other games fell by the wayside, though, and I've played nothing other than RDR2 for my past 60 gaming hours (oh - barring an hour or so in BL2 co-op...).
But I totally agree that GTA games feel like they get up to speed much more quickly. Everything in RDR2 starts off agonisingly slowly! This includes development of the characters. I did end up with positive feelings towards Hosea, Lenny and Sadie, and negative feelings towards one or two others - but it took a while!
There's definitely more to the world than how it looks, though, in my opinion. I've had some pretty interesting and surprising encounters with NPCs in the world, and briefly got involved in the goings-on around them. I don't remember anything like that in GTA games. In GTA, all the people populating the cities are just cookie-cutter place-fillers. In RDR2 I did get close to feeling like they were really people who I just happened to be encountering. Maybe not all the time, but often enough to give a sense of a living and populated world.
And the chores you mention... well you don't
have to do them - not that often, anyway. I only ever clean my gun when I'm stocking up with ammo or upgrading things at the gunsmith anyway (when you get leather wraps and a perk or two weapons don't degrade that quickly). You don't have to brush your horse if you don't want to (the horse stamina core will degrade more quickly, but that's not a big deal). I only brush my horse for cosmetic reasons now when I can be bothered to (it's a white Arabian so it does show up the dirt!). Camp management you can totally ignore if you want to. I haven't done any camp chores or fetch quests since the first couple of chapters, and I don't think there are any really negative effects for not upgrading things or making sure supplies are topped up (you might miss out on some crafting options, but otherwise people will just be a bit more surly).
Of course, it's perfectly possible you'll just find you don't like the characters
or the story
or any of the activities available in the world (hunting, fishing, stranger missions, side quests, gambling, robberies, bounties, etc.). In that case, it's probably not going to get any better
