How does the difficulty level compare...

[QUOTE="ianpwilliams"]...there are no regenerating shields, no regenerating health, no pausing to change weapons, and you can die if shot point-blank.[/QUOTE]

Keep in mind that MP 2 had regenerating bullet time though, which frankly made it far easier than MP1 if you just waited for it to fill and kept using shoot dodge. There's no cover system in MP 1&2, but as said, the AI also aren't as adept. They pretty much stay in one spot as you charge them. The AI in MP 3 will charge and flank you. As far as adaptable difficulty, I've never really experienced (or needed) that on PC. Since gamepads are the only devices that allow soft and hard lock aiming, adpative difficulty may be specific to console versions of the game.

To a degree, the addition of cover balances with the better AI, but there are many places where you're going to have to think beyond the box MP 1&2 puts you in and get more creative. Fortunately MP3 gives you many ways to do that. There's cinematic moments where you're hanging from a crane hook and such in slo mo where taking out as many as possible will make what follows easier. There's explodable containers and gas station tanks you can shoot in places, and enrionmental traps like buses and cars on repair lifts. You can also blow up cars by shooting bullets or grenades at them.

The staples of player ingenuity comes in the form of skillfully combining shoot dodges with the snap-to cover system to fluidly chain together well aimed dodges from cover to cover though. There are also places where you can safely crouch fire without the assist of bullet time to build up more bullet time. If well positioned, unaided prone firing is also an effective way to fairly safely build up bullet time.

The demo vids tend to showcase running and gunning in bullet time a lot, but it is in fact one of the least effective ways to use bullet time, esp if zig zag strafing left and right as they show. There's a bit of built-in (but realistic) response lag when Max changes direction, which hampers this style of play. You are much better off taking quick advantage of those entering a room and/or repositioning yourself to use a choke point. Even combining rolls with taps of bullet time shots when you're upright are better than this zigging and zagging they show.

What's nice about the cover system is it isn't extremely restrictive. While bound to it you can at any time do a shoot dodge over it, away from it, or to the left or right of it. You can also immediately snap to it while prone if you land near it with a shoot dodge. You can also minimize how much bullet time you use while shoot dodging by tapping the bullet time key at any time mid dodge. This means you can also use shoot dodge more to just dive safley to a cover spot than shoot while mid air if you want. This is key because sometimes all it takes to handle a battle well is how you position your self at the start. Movement while crouched though is extremely slow and even a bit jittery at times, but still very effective to use in certain situations.

[QUOTE="ianpwilliams"]So as stated earlier, it sounds like MP 3 is quite a bit more tactical.[/QUOTE]

Well honestly you can play it tactically or run n gun, or in MP's case you might say dodge n gun. What style you choose is going to depend on how well you know the game, what diff level you play on, and of course your skill.

The only time I started feeling a bit frustrated was in getting Platinum medals from the 7th chapter on in New York Minute. The only frustrating part of the campaign was the start of the last chapter on the two highest difficulty levels. It's a spot where you don't have much to work with, but I found a way to get past it fairly easily.

The campaign kinda spoils you because you can take your time and in most spots, there's plenty of ammo. NYM involves precision and speed and of course protecting yourself at the same time. It's not hard if you just intend to beat the time vs medal though.

Honestly, I would never ever play a game like this with a gameplad, but then I started out my gaming on PC with KB/M, so. Yeah the movement is a little clumsy, esp if you strafe back and forth in bullet time like they show in the demo vids, but despite Max being an old fart, Spec Ops: The Line's younger, thinner protagonist is even clumsier, sliding to a stop and a bit slow to move to and from cover. Max on the other hand can snap to cover while prone rather quickly (a very useful feature), and quickly shoot dodge from any cover spot.

Don't be too influenced by how hard it feels the first run. I played my first run on Easy because I wanted to get to know the game well before cranking up the diff and I like being able to find the upgrade parts without losing lots of helath. I was surprised how hard even Easy mode felt on my first run. At times I questioned whether I'd be able to even complete the game on Hardcore and Old School. I kept finding ways to improve my tactics though, which helped a lot.

[QUOTE="ianpwilliams"]I guess I'm just more used to the traditional shooters, where you have complete conrol of your character at all times.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about the game frequently going in and out of cutscenes where you have to wait to regain control of your character, often starting you in a room full of enemies when you come back into play?