In a lot of ways, that was absolutely exceptional, it made me nostalgic remembering the excitement of finding something as simple as a new clothing store as I explored the city. The emphasis on brick and mortar is appreciated (I almost wish the game had a system to discover new shops instead of just highlighting them on the GPS).
Extended vehicle customization with boats and aircraft is a huge surprise. Skin customization for the alternate gun models. Asymmetric adjustment. Free form clothing layering. There is an undeniable impression of polish in this presentation that was noticeably missing from the earlier previews. This has dramatically helped improve my confidence in the game.
I might nitpick in that I'm still a bit worried about the face customization and body sculpting. I'm sad to see the return of the triangle sculptor, although I'm glad that muscle definition is finally a separate slider. A lot of the faces they showed all seem to have the same base skeleton shape to the face/eyes, which is potentially restrictive. If you deviate from the preset mouth and eye structure in the earlier games, it can horrifically break the animations in cutscenes, so I'm worried that variety will be stifled. There was something a little bit uncanny/off with how the faces looked on a few of the previews, and I'm worried that making nice looking characters will be a struggle.
Censorship is hard to discern, I greatly appreciate the customization for nudity presentation (I remember that was supposed to be a feature in 4), although it's hard to tell if more "beautified" character design options will be limited, or if body sculpting options will be reduced, for example. They were mentioned but not shown in the preview very clearly.
There is a lot of goofy and gimmicky options shown of with the skin and iris's, but I wish there was more emphasis on fundamentals, such as more detailed body sculpting and shape options, detail and material options in makeup and hair highlight placement, and modular tattoos/scars. Almost none of the characters showed in the preview looked very serious or authentic, despite them touting such being an option in the "interview", I genuinely hope that is still accounted for. You can make ugly monstrosities in hundreds of games, genuine character creators where you can make gorgeous designs are a dime-a-dozen, extremely rare, bordering non-existent.
Admittedly the balance between overwhelming modularity that is difficult to work with and could potentially be inaccessible, and stifling and limited presets is hard to define. Since it was a sneak peak, it's not entirely clear what all the limitations are going to be, but hopefully the face presets aren't all restricted to the same facial rig.
The gang customization was a bit vague, and none of the options they showed looked very authentic, serious, or genuine. There is a strong possibility that people who want better fashion associated with gang or mafia culture will be disappointed. Are the vehicles restricted pre-mades, or can you make your own presets for the gang members? Hard to tell.
My absolute biggest concern is still in regards to attention to detail of the world itself, AI interactivity, and interesting and immersive interaction or roleplay opportunities for the open world. If the player is given a tonne of overpowered weapon options for vehicles, but there was no attempt made to improve the AI and challenge of the police and vehicle pursuits, that would be a huge let down. Having fleshed out boat and air vehicle customization will be sad if there is nothing engaging to explore in the water or sky, or no creative activities that utilize them beyond boring checkpoint races.
Hearing that there is a much larger variety of brands and business's is fantastic, and hopefully the world design is more interesting, varied and immersive, but I seriously hope that it's not surface deep like 90 percent of open world games. Ubisoft games are notorious for environments with strong, historical modelling and detail, but absolutely no interactivity, and the open world gameplay itself being a boring, mundane checklist with dissonant activities disconnected from the surface dressing.
The ability to go to clubs, shopping malls, aquatic-centres, gyms, and actually interact with objects and interiors would be exceptional, and I hope that the AI is immersive and interesting in how they live in the world.
I honestly think that with such an exceptional character creator, the devs should try to cater to the GTA-RP audience, there is a huge untapped market there that is currently only realized by modders. Even if it's entirely separate from the coop and actual gameplay, a very limited peer to peer multiplayer system, and a bunch of roleplay animations that modders could utilize, could potentially make head-way in a very lucrative market, with a strong social media and streaming presence.
Actively supporting modders and working with them to create community servers would absolutely sky-rocket the games popularity.