Well let me put those concerns to rest, because I have played the game extensively, and it is absolutely awesome! Chinatown Wars delivers the full Grand Theft Auto experience, even adding more to the formula. First off, you shouldn't let the title deceive you. When I first heard the title "Chinatown Wars", I was thinking "Well, it's probably just a tactical strategy game that only takes place in the tiny Chinatown section of Liberty City that was in GTAIV. You get the entire Liberty City to explore (minus the Alderney island) that was in GTAIV. Honestly, I don't miss Alderney that much, but it would have been cool if it was there. Regardless though, the areas that are in the game are absolutely huge. If you played GTAIV, you should feel right at home with this Liberty City for the most part. It is in fact the same city with minor differences. The overpasses in GTAIV are changed to wider roads on the ground. This change is integrated very well without losing the scale of the city. Each area of the city is still distinct with it's characteristics. Algonquin (the "Times Square" equivalent) still looks amazing with the city lights everywhere with fast food outlets and clubs lining the streets.
Probably the most important aspect of a Grand Theft Auto games is of course, being able to commit Grand Theft Auto. This aspect is just as intact as it is in any other games of the series. The cars control very well, and just how you would expect them to. It is still possible to flip the cars over and blow them up. Different cars have different speeds, weight, and this is all very easy to feel when driving the cars. The police aspect has changed a little bit this time around, and in my opinion, it's for the better. Like before, they still have the star system that tells you how badly the cops are trying to catch you when you commit crimes. You can lose your wanted level by taking out the cop cars by either getting them to run into the water, crash into something at high speed, or you crash into them at a high speed. When you do it right, you'll see a red X over the car, and when you take the number of cars required, you'll have less or a non-existent wanted level. Alternatively, you can still run and hide, but it is much harder to pull off this time. One of my complaints about the way the cops work is that it's so much easier to get yourself arrested. If a cop is running up by the side of your car and trying to open your door, and you're just starting moving from a complete stop, you might as well not even try, because they'll pull you out of the car and there's no way to resist arrest in this game. In the GTA series, getting arrested it always worse that dying, because you lose all of you weapons and drugs you are carrying and you lose some money as a bribe to the cops.
Speaking of drugs, that brings me to my next point: The drug-trading system. Something you always see in gangster movies is gangs making runs of huge shipments of drugs to somewhere else evading other gangs in the cops. In the past, this has only really been simulated in missions, where they just tell you, "Drive this truck from point A to point B" You will frequently get email tip-offs telling you if someone is buying or selling a certain drug at a good price. You should take advantage of these, because it is the best way to make money in the game. There are also vans occasionally driving around town that are marked by a red arrow pointing to them that you can steal and run back to a safehouse to take it's cargo out. Stealing these vans is a lot of fun because you have the previous owner and the cops on your tail while you're trying to get this van to safety.
When most people think of the DS, they think of the touch screen. The touch screen is used quite frequently in this game, making you have to constantly pull and put away the stylus. This seems tedious at first, but once you understand just when you do and don't need it, it feels like a second nature, or at least it did to me. Right off the bat, they have you use the stylus to break out the window of a car that's sinking in the ocean. The missions have a lot of creative uses from putting together a sniper rifle to using a crane to drop cars into the ocean.
This brings me to the next aspect: The controls. The game controls very well, especially driving the cars. There are a lot of variable settings such as making the cars align to the road when you are driving on a road, a very helpful setting indeed. The only concern is that there is no left-hand specific setting, but I'm not really sure how this is for lefties because I am right-handed.
This game is a real looker for the DS. Everything is in 3D in the top down perspective. The camera is always there when you need it to be, and there are even settings to change how it behaves in certain situations. The game zooms in and out for important things. My only gripe here is that the story scenes are just still pictures, occasionally moving, in a really ugly looking art style. The storyline is okay at best, but you most likely aren't playing a GTA game for the storyline, at least I don't. The missions are quite fun to play, but I'm not going to go into spoiling detail about them.
The music is all instrumental stuff, which sounds okay, but is not quite as good as the personality the radio hosts and songs gave in the previous games. There is no voice acting in the story scenes, only the one-liners from people in the streets, which do sound good and make sense. You hear random things like "I wish I had a nail file" from a girl walking on a sidewalk, meanwhile you hear people cuss you out when you nearly run them over!
Overall, Chinatown Wars is no doubt a full Grand Theft Auto experience, and is definitely one of my favorite DS games. I strongly suggest buying this game, because it will keep you entertained for hours and hours upon end. I really want to see more of these games always known has "home console experiences" brought to the DS, and done well.
Overall, I give this one a 9.3/10