High production value, but little to no game play variety.
Now I am not one to ruin stories or spoilers, but in a nutshell Max Payne 3 is about guy tries to save people, gets caught up in a mess he didn't plan to get caught up in then feels its up to him to clean it up. There is a few twists here and there.
The graphics in this game are pretty good for the CG. Its got an interesting light show to say the least, but the in game graphics are pretty average. The environments are very detailed and there is plenty of variety in different locals, however you get that deep rooted feeling of fighting the exact same guy in different clothing.
The game play works well, but it tends to feel like a one trick pony. You basically rely on the time stopping mechanics to progress through the game. There is not much gun evolution and there is no stat boosts of any kind giving it a very arcade like feeling to it. There really isn't anything wrong with that unless you were expecting more from this game which I wouldn't doubt a lot of people were. There is no grenade option in this game and at times it feels like it could of served very well in this game, but at the same time made it to easy like they some how new it would be. You heal buy popping pills and if you die you start off with full life again. The game play works really well I can't knock that, but I feel it only works well because they stripped the game down as much as they possibly could. I kind of expect more from a rock star game but then again, all their games are stripped down when it comes to game play. Not that I don't love the games they make.
The rest: This game has a well presented story, great voice acting and some nice set pieces, but its not by any means very in depth. Its got a current gen gloss with a game style of the last gen consoles. The main story is less than ten hours. I got this game at about 15 dollars on steam, so I do feel I got my moneys worth and I guess if I had been interested in multi player i would of gotten even more.
If you are looking to play this game for the single player only at its current price of 49.99 I would suggest passing until it drops to a sub 19.99. Its short and sweet, but if you got other games on your list I would suggest waiting.