i had mercenaries 2 a while ago and it was pretty fun. i traded it for cod 3 so i think it was a damn good deal. my brother has saints row 2 and i thought it was terrible.

Sweet I might get Mercenaries 2 and Saboteur at a discount. Thanks! It's a shame Saints Row 2 probably won't be running on my PC anytime soon.

Stay far away from the PC version of Saints Row II. It's hands down one of the worst PC ports ever. The performance issues are not just tied the type of hardware you have - it will run like ass on the best of hardware (Quad cores, 4+GB RAM, high end video cards, etc.)
To put it in perspective, my machine will run GTAIV @ 1920X1080 with pretty high settings silky smooth - SR2 is unplayable. I've had that game for 2 different hardware configs in my machine and tried it on other machines I've built - still the same.
AFAIK THQ still has no plans to fix it - pretty much abandoned.

The Saboteur is interesting. While it is set in a sandbox it's heavily story-driven with not nearly as many side diversions as you might expect. It also has really great music. It has its flaws but was an overall satisfying experience.
Actually that was fixed with a patch within days of release. It now works fine on ATI cards (I played it to completion with no trouble).

Another vote for Saboteur, approaches WW2 from a different angle and is very fun in the process.
Unfortunately the ATI Radeon incompatibility (?!) sucked up any hype the game could have had...PC Gamer UK gave it 86 though.

I wouldn't say Saint's Row II is worse than GTAIV. Simply because they follow a different set of rules. GTAIV is a much more story-driven and semi-realistic focused action game, which happens to be based in a freely roamable city. While Saint's Row II is much more pure sandbox gameplay. It's still got the story, but there are so many other things to do, and everything is much more over the top.
I'd say that GTAIV is more close to Mafia, with more realistic physics and vehicle controls. Saint's Row II is much more like the Playstation 2/Xbox era GTA games, and feels more like a mix between GTA III and GTA San Andreas.
I recommend Saint's Row II if you want pure fun, over the top, gameplay with lots to do. It's a much purer sandbox game than GTAIV. It's a fabulous game, and it's much more fun to cause havok in than GTAIV, imo. I enjoyed both games, but they're pretty different, and if you loved the PS2/Xbox generation of GTA games, I'm 99,9% certain that you'll enjoy SRII very very much.

Ballad of Gay Tony made GTA IV on par with Saint's Row. You could BASE jump off the Rotterdam Tower. I mean, you could.

If either Saints Row II or GTA IV weren't so system crippling on PC, they'd be a lot more enjoyable to play. I bought GTA IV on Xbox 360 and even there it doesn't run very fluently. I thought "I'll get it on PC and it should run better" but they managed to make it run even worse. Ah well, now I know what game I'll play first when I get a new CPU *laughs*

Saying that Saints Row 2 is well optimised on PC is like saying that a windmill is a good can opener. The game does have its fun moments, but starts off on the wrong foot, to my mind.
The fact that it runs silky smooth when you're on foot then drops the frame rate to about 10 fps when you get into a car doesn't help either.
Saboteur also has no end of technical problems that you know will never be fixed thanks to the fact that the development team is no more.

but that's console only. >:D
Saints Row 2 is a better game, in terms of trying to have fun. If you can get the sucker to run (I sport a quadcore with a quadcore 2.4ghz q6600, and an ati 4650hd and I can run it), it is a much better game than GTAIV.
GTAIV has a much grittier realism and will often force the playing to do something (typically in the design of a phone call saying do this or you'll be sorry!). Saints Row 2 allows you to do whatever you want within the game, at any time (provided you don't mind the drive). You can play this game all day without doing any storyline missions, or you could sit down and do a bunch of storyline missions.. it just feels much more open world to me, and the game rewards you so much more for having fun.
having to play GTAIV is like having to rot in prison.

Well the DLC is coming to PC so....ya!
GTA 4 annoyed me with the go here do this crap over and over again. I have a really bad sense of direction so I was always getting lost. It was still okay but ugggg.
Seriously though, if you want a badass open world game, Crackdown is the best one.....like ever.

Good job, agent!

Not for much longer.