yet to see an open world game that does this effectively. I had

While I personally like narrative single player games (mass effect etc) I did think the witcher 3 did a good take on open world. Wandering around each village and the stories told in each location helped flesh out the world and peoples attitudes to one another and to witchers in general.

It does completely suck the forward momentum out of the game, nothing is urgent, but as long as you can progress the main story without having to grind open world missions I think its ok.

I would prefer Deus Ex to be narrative.