Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Pretentious"

I've played through all three Max Payne games, and I have enjoyed all three. I do like Max Payne, 3, with a couple of story/style quirks that bugged me.
The first Max Payne game featured a Scandinavian weirdo as Max's Character model. That was awesome. It made all of us ugly and gangly dudes feel like we were the star of a game. Next time around Max looked like Chris Noth's uncle's cousin's barber. In the first two games it was always dark, or raining, or somehow covered in shadow. The noir/graphic novel motif from the first two games was appealing in its own right.

Now it's sunny, and Max is some sexy juggernaut, bigger than 2 Scandinavians. There is no graphic novel design. They attempt to supplement this with slick looking techno-text. It looks good, but this game could be called anything, as far as I'm concerned. It's no longer noir. Simply taking painkillers and having the ability to shot dodge does not continue the story.

The gameplay is super fun, although I found myself relying much less on the shot-dodge due to the cover mechanic. I don't know if they meant to take away the game's signature move, but it figures.

I'm not slamming the gameplay, or the story (which is good). I was just taken aback by the fact that it is not Max Payne.