Plenty of people walking around in other areas of the footage. Dense crowds can be nice, but they'ren ot really necessary if they don't affect gameplay. Pop-in has been used in games since like forever. It's definitely noticeable but I don't see how it's "messy".
I think that gif looks pretty good, nice style, but I do get the impression that the game has various levels of quality, sometimes I think the game looks great and other times it doesn't look so hot.
The writing, isn't too my style (would prefer more serious tone), but perhaps when your not just playing it in bits like in the video that it feels better. Unfortunately I'm feeling like games are trying to be more funny/stupid/crazy (WatchDogs for example), when I would just prefer something more serious.... perhaps I'm just getting old.
Still, I'm looking forward to playing this on PS5 rather than last gen, which I think it isn't going to run at a stable 30... hope its not too bad, but you do wonder when the Series X car is going full pelt and the XBX they drive it extremely slowly...lol