Game Informer recently got a hands-on with GTA Online, and have given a thoroughly detailed preview of it in their latest issue. We've summarised some of the new details below, and you can also read a brief overview of the 12-page spread on IGN.

• GTA Online is something Rockstar have been planning since GTA III. Now that the concept is real, they eventually plan to expand it to include previous and future worlds - "We wanted a world where people could spend years without getting bored of playing the same content over and over."
• When creating your character, you will choose the parents and grandparents, and lifestyle, this will determine your characters looks and starting statistics, which can be upgraded later.
• The world will be populated with your friends, your crew, and similarly ranked players from your geographical region. Alternatively, each player can be hand picked.
• You can play in "passive mode" where players can't kill you, but you become hostile when you fire your weapon.
• Pretty much all activities from the single player campaign will be available online, including heists, missions, robberies, assaulting gang hideouts, hijacking armored vehicles, races, as well as sports such as tennis, golf and base jumping
• There are over 500 missions available, some of which can be completed alone, others will require you to team up.
• All of the missions take place shortly before the start of the single-player game, meaning some familiar faces will make an appearance.
• If you make friends with the right people you'll also be granted bonuses (for example, biker gangs may offer mission support or a hacker can hide you on the radar in multiplayer matches).
• The point of the game is to gain as much money as possible, and use it to buy assets such as cars and houses
• Houses will have space for storing cars; cheap ones will have two garage spaces while expensive penthouses will hold up to ten.
• You'll want to visit ATMs often as rival players can kill you and take any cash you have on you at the time.
• If you do get robbed, you can put a bounty on the perpetrator's head and attempt to get some revenge.
• You can accept race invites from your phone to warp to the location, instead of waiting in a lobby.
• A lobby window will open up for some missions, allowing the crew leader to customize the time of day, weather, degree of difficulty, and the number of lives the crew has to complete the mission.
• Each player will select their role for the mission and receive specific instructions for that role. You will respawn if you die but it will count against your crew's lives.
• You can invite friends and crew members over to have a drink, call strippers, enjoy the view, and watch the Rockstar parody TV shows together. If one of your crew members is in a high speed chase, they will appear on Weazel News on the TV.
• Rockstar plans to continue creating new content for GTA Online and support it as a separate product from GTA V.
• Rockstar have employed a dedicated team to help with stress testing the game in the first few weeks.
• Player created race and deathmatch modes will be available at launch, with more complex mission creators coming later.
• You'll need to play for about an hour before you access a certain rank enabling you to create your own content for the game.
• Creation mode lets you choose the type of race (Normal, GTA, or Rally), weather, radio station, police interference, and ambient drivers.
• Deathmatch creation mode lets you choose the type, timer, and kill count, spawn points, weapon types, and extra props and vehicles.
• Rockstar will be playing and ranking the user-created content on the Social Club, allowing players to easily see the best content.