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Yeah slipping into the rabbit hole of the side mission on a game you like is great, like you say just extending the time you're in that world, makes it more than worthwhile. Apart from when you're stuck on it, and won't let it defeat you. Just being stuck on a mission for days on end. Like trying to defeat all the valkyries in god of war, especially the queen. FUCK!!! was stuck on that for ages.
Spiderman whilst I love the free world roaming, I just find some of the side missions a bit random, or different skin on the same thing, catch this, follow that, do it with one gang then do it again, slightly differently with a different gang. Feels alot more grindy than Control or God of War. I was in the first quarter of it, before I put it down to start some other games I'd just brought, and I'll go back to it, but as mentioned before don't think I'll enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying control.
cornelius_blackfoot-
argh, i'd forgotten about the final Queen valkyrie fight - that's still on my to do list. I made the fatal error of putting GOW aside once I finished everything except that fight (Spidey had arrived and i got excited about playing it). Went back to the fight about a month later and had forgotten all the attack sequences so now can't face having to die a million times to relearn them all.
Detritus
I love a detour on a side mission - mainly because i'm a sucker for a dopamine hit of ticking off lists - but also if it's a game i'm enjoying it helps delay the inevitable finish.
I'm actually really enjoying Spider Man - i got the Game of the Year version and have 100% the main game and the DLC, and am now going through it on New Game+, even though I've got a backlog of games to work through. I honestly don't know why i keep going back to it - I genuinely think it may just be because I just like web-slinging around a sunny Manhattan - i think they absolutely nailed that mechanic.