Some bad developing decisions ruin the game
First is the shooting mechanics, you can't really aim your weapon, you draw it and it automatically aims at who it wants, this makes shooting very boring and repetitive.
There's actually a way to aim your weapon where you want but it's pretty much impossible to use in an actual shoot out unless you want to die and restart the mission, so yeah, pretty useless.
Second thing I didn't like about this game is the camera, 2003 was a year that having a bad camera was no longer something that can be ignored, every game from that time let you rotate the camera around your character, this game didn't and so a very frustrating experience was created.
Lastly, I appreciate the creative thinking behind the driving mechanics, with the signaling instead of a map thing, but it just doesn't work, you wanna know exactly where you need to go so you can try and find short cuts while you drive or plan ahead who what cars you're going to cut in order to make it difficult for the police to catch you, but instead you gotta drive carefully because every second a signal may show up and make you change your direction.
Overall this game was so-so around the time it came out and today (2011) it's completely unplayable.