It was okay, I guess. Getting married and then watching your wife wander around in a happy daze talking to trees and the sky was kinda funny. Not much going on other than that though.
Perhaps it wasn't technically sandboxing, but when he was playing it one of his main attempts to sell me on it was by saying "Hurrr, I can do whatever I want! Watch this!" and proceeding to wail on some dude or fart in someone's face or buy a house, with minimal consequences, and I couldn't figure out how or why I was supposed to care. The game gave him all these options that were essentially fucking the same dog over and over again dressed up in a different costume.
It was way too easy... the combat system could have been really great if there was anything challenging to use it on. Also, racking up 50k experience (which is a LOT) in 15 seconds by hotkeying the summon button to as many keys as possible and pounding your keyboard as hard as you can was pretty fun.