Call of Duty 3 plays well and looks spectacular. It's a faithful addition to the most intense WWII series around.
The gameplay in CoD 3 is pretty much identical to CoD 2, which was pretty similar to CoD. The core gameplay is pretty simple shooting from behind cover. There are a few additions which have some appeal, but nothing drastic has been done to change the formula.
The most notable changes to the gameplay include the new interactive activities such as rowing boats, driving cars, placing charges, and beating the snot out of Nazis with the butt of your gun. Save for rowing boats, these are all pretty neat and/or enjoyable, but none of them are very spectacularly unique. The melee combat is very simple and it's always a scripted event. You can never just, on a whim, decide to run up to a Nazi and engage in intense melee combat. The melee combat is neat, but it's a very minor gameplay element.
I suppose that many will consider it a good thing that the game has not changed much. I think the game is still very fun and I've played it for hours, but I would've liked to see a few more changes, just so that there was more to distinguish this game from its predecessors than the graphics. Still, the game is lots of fun to play.
Another (very minor) complaint I have with the gameplay is the frequentness of cutscenes. In CoD 3, to progress the story you are often taken out of gameplay and forced to sit through a short movie. This would be OK (it happens in tons of games) except these cutscenes are never very interesting and they usually just break up (and take you out of) the action. Still, this is a minor complaint and it's not something that should way too heavily into your decision about whether or not to get this game.
Graphically, this game looks amazing. Character models are astoundingly realistic and beautiful environments are often destructible. The guns look amazing and all of the effects, such as smoke and explosions, look spectacular. A new addition I really like is the occasional rag doll effect on dead bodies which makes them fall down dead more realistically. Another great addition is the way your view shakes and moves realistically when you perform actions such as reloading. The screen will shake about as your character moves his head around. Reading this, that may not seem very impressive, but it really adds to the realism and intensity of the game. The only issue with the graphics is that there are occasional clipping errors with the rag doll effects.
The greatest thing about the newest CoD is, as usual, the audio. The audio in CoD 3 is amazingly loud and adds to the intensity more than anything else. If you turn the volume up on your TV, you will feel as if explosions are really going off around you. It's almost deafening and it's a great part of this game.
Another great part of this new game is the multiplayer. There are a variety of different modes in which up to 24 players can participate. This makes for very chaotic and enjoyable multiplayer action. In addition, there are driveable vehicles, making the action even more ridiculous (in a good way).
Call of Duty 3 is a very fun WWII shooter that successfully lives up to the Call of Duty name. It doesn't do anything remarkably new with the series, but it takes an already excellent formula and polishes it, making a World War II shooter suitable for the next gen.