Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced launch is going poorly or well depending on how you look at it: It's got a 'mixed' rating on Steam and is one of the most-played games

Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is out on Steam today, and so far it seems to be going either really well or not great, depending on how you want to look at it. In terms of players, things are rosy: Nearly 115,000 people are playing at the moment, and it hit a 24-hour peak of more than 187,000. That's driven in large part by the fact that the Enhanced edition is free for existing owners of Grand Theft Auto 5, which is why the sharp-eyed among you will notice that it's not among the top-selling games on Steam, but even so that's not bad at all for a fresh coat of paint on a decade-old game. But user reviews? That's a different story.

The current Steam rating for GTA 5 Enhanced is "mixed," with just 56% of user reviews currently coming in positive. Steam user reviews aren't the most precise and on-point expression of useful videogame criticism, but they do often reflect the mood of the moment in a very broad sense—at least when that mood is "anger."

In the case of GTA 5 Enhanced, there doesn't appear to be any singular issue setting people off: Expressions of discontent range from technical and performance problems to difficulties transferring existing accounts and a general sense of disappointment in the extent of the enhancements—quite a few people just aren't as blown away by the upgrade as they expected to be, and one relatively common complaint is that the Enhanced edition is capped at 120 fps, while the frame rate of the original is uncapped. There's also a bit of grumbling about Grand Theft Auto 6 here and there, which in case you were wondering still hasn't been announced for PC.

It's possible Rockstar didn't anticipate this level of demand for GTA 5 Enhanced: A support page linked by Rockstar Support in response to numerous inquiries on X says, in typically understated Rockstar fashion, that "some online migrations may take additional time to complete."

But the page also warns that suspended or banned accounts "may not be eligible for migration," something a number of users have already reported running into. Some aren't too happy about it, but others are taking it as an opportunity for a fresh start.

It's also interesting that while GTA 5 Enhanced has powered its way into Steam's top 10, it hasn't done so by cannibalizing GTA 5 Legacy, the original version of the game that remains available separately on Steam. The Legacy version currently has roughly 122,000 people playing, a bit of a drop from recent numbers but not too far off where it normally would be, while the Enhanced edition has more than 115,000 going at the same time.

The Enhanced edition concurrent player count was actually quite a bit higher than the Legacy version at one point, but the numbers have fallen off since, presumably as the initial rush of curiosity about the "new" game has given way to the reliable consistency of the old.

Even so, that's a big bump in overall player count when taken together. It surely won't last, as Rockstar gets account migration issues sorted and lapsed players who were idly curious about the changes in the updated release drop off, but it does point to persistent, deep interest in Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online among PC gamers—something Rockstar and Take-Two will hopefully keep in mind as they continue to keep us in suspense.