Minor story spoilers ahead!

Just last night I finished the story mode in Uncharted 3, and it was great. However, I must say it didn't surpass the second game's story for me personally. There just didn't seem to be as many "OMG! Did that just happen??" moments in it, and it just didn't quite have as much of an overall epic feel to it like U2 did.

Another thing that U2 has over U3 is better characters and character development. In U3, Drake, Sully, and Elena are as awesome as ever, but I can't say the same for the others. Chloe, who I think stole the show in the second game, barely got to do anything in this one. Heck, before you even hit the halfway point in the game she's already done in the story and you don't see her again. As for the new characters, they were just ok. I really did like Charlie Cutter, but just like Chloe, he's out of the picture before you're even halfway through the story. The villains were only ok as well. Katherine Marlowe just wasn't as compelling of a villain as Lazarevic was, as proven by the fact that the secondary villain, Talbot, I actually felt was more the main villain than she was. Not to mention the way they both go out is just, underwhelming. There wasn't even an epic boss fight at the end, just a fistfight (which was cool, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't nearly as great as the boss fights in the last two games).

I really did like how we find out a lot more about Drake and Sully's past in this game though, and the game really puts a lot of emphasis on their relationship. I particularly liked the flashback scene at the beginning when you play as young Drake. What I didn't like though was the lack of explanation in Drake and Elena's relationship. During the story, you can tell that something bad happened between them, but it's never really explained what it was. One of my favorite moments in the game was when Drake shows up at her apartment in Yemen beaten, battered, and bruised, and Elena thought she had lost him. Drake rests his head on her lap and says "I'm sorry", and Elena replies "I know". But you never really find out what it is he's sorry about. This was probably intentional, but I would have liked an explanation.

Even with all these complaints, I still loved the game. It was probably wrong of me to expect the story to be above or even on par with the second game (seriously, U2 was probably one of the toughest acts to follow in video game history), so I can't say I'm too disappointed. There were some truly incredible moments, and the story was compelling, just like the first two games. I loved the game, and I can't wait to play through it a couple more times and get the rest of the trophies. Oh, and of course there's a huge multiplayer mode that I can't wait to really start diving into as well :)