I keep reading reviews calling this game a poor mans GTAIV or a weak sandbox game, it's neither. If anything it has more in common with Dynasty Warriors Empires or really old school games like Syndicate. It's a story driven action strategy game, take over territory, customise and improve your soldiers, the driving is about all that it has in common with sandbox games.
I quite like it as a game, it's not hard but it's challenging in a high maintenance sort of way, you're constantly upgrading and micromanaging your family and you have to move pretty fast to take over rackets otherwise you find yourself on the back foot with a lot of incapacitated soldiers and not a lot of income.
I sat down at 8:30 on Friday night to play it and only realised I hadn't moved for 3 hours when my wife came in to see what I was doing, always a good sign.