The open world has a lot to do and explore. Personally I felt that the later iterations lost a little bit of that artistic soul that made the open world feet more alive and dynamic.

With that said, the PC Port for Saints Row is poorly optimized.
You will have to manually download and install a few essential fixes to make the game playable again.
[Which, I'll list them out below]

https://github.com/atom0s/Steamless/releases

• Download The Latest Version of Steamless from the link above.
  
• Launch the Steamless executable.
  
• Locate your SR2_pc.exe.
  [found where Saints Row 2 is installed]
  
• Select the "Unpack File" option to remove Steam DRM.
  
• Rename the newly created "SR2_pc.exe.unpacked" file to simply "SR2_pc.exe" to replace your original executable.

https://ntcore.com/4gb-patch/

• Download the 4GB Patch from the above link.
  
• Extract and Launch the 4gb patch executable.
  
• Locate your SR2_pc.exe to apply the patch.
  [found where Saints Row 2 is installed]
  
• Select the "Okay" option when it's done.

https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

• Download the Latest Version of DXVK from the above link.
  
• Extract/open the latest version of the dxvk.tar.gc file
  
• Within you'll find a folder named "x32"
  
• Copy "d3d9.dll" and "dxgi.dll"
  
• Paste both files where SR2_pc.exe is located.
  [found where Saints Row 2 is installed]

https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/threads/saints-row-2-juiced-patch.21627/

• Download the latest version of this patch.
  
• Extract all the files and folders of the patch to where SR2_pc.exe is located.
  
• Open the "reloaded.ini" configuration file using a text editor.
  
• Carefully read through and Manually enable essential fixes one by one.
  
• Avoid enabling anything that has "Experimental" flag
  
• Save and Close.

https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/threads/gentlemen-of-the-row.24/

• Download Gentlemen of the Row v1.9.2 from the above link.
  
• The Installation instructions are provided within, it is fairly simple and easy to follow.

https://www.radmin-vpn.com
(The Juiced patch does provide another way to play CO-OP and Multiplayer using Openspy, but you may need to port-forward and possibly change your firewall settings etc to get it to work - I personally prefer Radmin VPN since it's free and easy to setup and it offers you a safe virtual local area network without much hassle)

• You and your friends must Download and Install Radmin VPN. (it's completely free).
  
• You must 'Create A Network' within Radmin VPN for you and yours friends.
  
• Share the Name and Password of your Network to your friend/friends.
  
• You and your friends then needs to connect to that Network.
  
• Start Saints Row 2, then you can Start/Host/Load a CO-OP > LAN PLAY from the main menu.
  
• Your friend can then Find Your Game and Request to Join you under the COOP LAN menu.
  
• You both need to Make sure that you have installed all the fixes and mods mentioned above.
  
• You both Need to have absolutely identical Installations of the "Gentlemen of the Row Mod".

And with that, you can enjoy this game with your friends or by self to your hearts content!