Mind-blowing, Rockstar does it right.
I also never really got into western games, I much prefer eastern games like Yakuza, the style of cowboys and horses never really drew me in.
Red Dead Redemption however, renews my love for sandbox games, the missions are fun and varied, the exploration is satisfying, combat is challenging and enjoyable and the difficulty is perfect. The controls are quick to get used to, there are very little complexity in the gameplay as the game provides the player with easy-to-understand and brief tutorial messages as they play.
A game has to have flaws, right? Right, in this case, there are some minor glitches and bugs, for example, during my playthrough near the beginning of the game (no spoilers) I was supposed to shoot some rabbits within a very small farming area, there are red dots on the minimap that indicates the locations of each rabbit, I killed all but one and I was unable to locate it, I walked around for a while and saw the rabbit stuck inside a fence, hopping on the spot unable to move away. These bugs, however, do not take away the fun from the game for me and it can be easily fixed through a patch.
An "innovation" of this game is the immense lack of HUD, you seen the screenshots/videos of gameplay, right? You see only a minimap at the bottom left corner with only two meters around it. There are some games where the screen is so clutered up with HUD icons that there is very little playing screen remaining, this game, however, does it right, you only see your ammunition when you draw your weapon and you can see how much you are hurt from damage from the blood splats on the screen (health regenerates automatically).
In conclusion, I heartily recommend Red Dead Redemption to anyone who likes fun, whether you are a hardcore or a casual gamer, do yourself a huge favour and go buy this game right away, buy two copies of this game and play them at the same time.