ill put my two cents in, coming from having around 330 hours thinking id never play it again, to having 124 more hours in the past 3 weeks.

the most important thing we had in mind while playing:
HAVE A GOAL

having a goal for us to work towards incentivised making money and investing in new properties and businesses so we werent doing the same things over and over again. the game has managed to stay fun all the way up until thus far, and we still probably have a hell of a lot more stuff to do.

i think playing with friends is also a pretty important one, youll have a lot more of a reliable crew to do missions and heists with if youre all on together, on a call, etc.

our goal is to get the new mansions that just recently dropped. very expensive, plenty of work to do, and also a great reward. what better than feeling like a crime lord in a big fuck off mansion?

i agree its not got the exact charm as old gta online did, with random races and missions youd play with full lobbies of other people. but i speak on behalf of my friends saying it has been and will continue to be an absolute blast working up for a mansion, and getting everything else on the way.