Man of Honour
That would be a good point if I said it was true for every single player in the game. But I didn't.
Some people get only the visual bugs, the pathing bugs, the clipping bugs, the nonsensical AI, etc. Nothing game breaking.
Some people get a completely unplayable game that CTDs frequently and has game-breaking bugs that can't be resolved even with the "load an old save and try the whole mission again" approach because the mission will always fail.
Some people get something in between.
As you said yourself:
I think it's fixable, though. The major problems are common enough to make finding causes less difficult.
I think that with maybe 6 months of work they might turn it into something close to the game they (and customers) wanted it to be. It's generally within shouting distance of it. The main issues are massive bugs on too many PCs and cutting things down at the last minute to scrabble for an unattainable release date. Those are fixable. The balance issues(*) are fixable. The AI probably isn't, but other than the police response to crimes you commit on the street it's not terrible. The best fix for that would probably to remove that mechanic entirely. Or maybe change it to paying a bribe. Having police teleport in on foot and have the whole police system completely forget it 20 seconds later so all you have to do is drive/ride away is just plain bad. Having it all go away with a bribe would be a better mechanic and would be in keeping with the gameworld.
Oh, and the last gen console issue, of course. Selling a game for hardware that can't run it just isn't on. I don't see any way that's fixable, short of making an effectively different game for those consoles.
* For example, with crafting it's possible to get infinite money and components of all kinds right from the beginning of the game, starting with only a can of pop. After a little while, it's possible to be immune to all ranged damage and to be able to one-shot everything in the game.
