I have to say that I prefer the sandbox version as well. With the hint system, there was never a time that I did not know what I needed to do next and when. It's not like a lot of other games where you have to do the exact same thing five times only to get the same result, but on the sixth you get a different result that allows you to progress with the story. As far as sandbox games go, this is one of the most player friendly games that I have ever played.
I know a lot of people are asking about the photos. If you do a search for photos in this thread, one of the results is for a post showing screen shots of all the photo locations.