Greetings from Lithuania.
"Sleeping Dogs" (2012) is a game that can not be not mentioned in one sentence with GTA. Is it was good as GTA5 lets say? No. Given the reportedly 250 million $ budget of GTA5, "Sleeping Dogs" simply couldn't be better. That said if you do not compare it with GTA series, "Sleeping Dogs" is a pure fun game.
I liked many things in it - story, fighting, driving, voice acting, city. City itself is a big enough but not to big - i liked it because you don't need to drive like 10 minutes from point A to point B. Fighting is a fun thing, i liked the whole kung fu" and that stuff. Shooting mechanics were also solid, but i didn't get it what was wrong with weapons - one moment you have a gun, next time after you get in a car load a game - you don't. But what "Sleeping Dogs" in my opinion did much, much better then GTA is driving mechanics. Driving is much more fun then it was even in GTA 5 - and i loved GTA 5 totally. Although there isn't big car variety, its enough get make for some fun driving. I liked the collectibles in game simply because they add to the game health, money. But there isn't really what to do with the money itself in this game unfortunately - you can buy clothes, cars and some decorations for your room o flat.
Overall, i finished "Sleeping Dogs" and had much more fun then i thought i would. This is a very fun game with some good if not the most original story, cool open world and some dragon kicks moments that never got old. Fun game in all directions.