Good game in the series but not the best. Fighters are still hard to play using the Xbox 360 D-Pad.
I bought the game, 800 points ($10 US), and I really do enjoy it. I'm not very good at fighting games, nor was I ever. But I still have a fun time playing them. Online mode is not bad, but most people have Red Latency Bars which causes bad lag (which is really weird, I always have 4 Green bars so I know it's them). I definitely suck online, enough so that I can't get wins and do the two Fatality and Frienship online achievements.
Nothing's new here except that it is Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 which includes the original ninja's because fans were upset Scorpion was left out of MK3 so the game could have the cyborg characters. The human ninja's are: Ermac, Scorpion, Reptile, Classic Sub-Zero (Unlockable), as well as Human Smoke (who is also said to be unlockable). Most of the achievements are offline and not too hard. The only offline achievement that is difficult is defeating Noob Saibot. In order to fight him you have to complete the game by beating Shao Khan and then selecting the 4th Reward (a number 3) which allows you to fight him. You only get one shot at it and he is extreemly difficult.
The controller is also of note. Some people find it very easy to use the Thumb Stick as the game was originally intended in arcades, however the thumb stick being too small to hold as you would a long arcade stick hinders the ability to do so. If anyone likes playing this way, definitely seek out the DoA4 Arcade Controller by Hori, it's no longer made but Ebay still has it. As for the rest of us, we'll probably play it like we did back on the Sega Genesis and Super NES, the D-Pad. Again the same plaguing problems with the D-Pad in fighting games as first seen in DoA4 and Street Fighter 2 HF. Hardcore players can eventually overcome the fact that the D-Pad isn't responsive enough for a fighting game that requires precision, but for the casual gamer it is a difficult hurdle. This is a downside only for the controller not the game, but it is worth noting in a review.
Personally, I find Mortal Kombat games more fun than Street Fighter, even though I also bought Street Fighter over the summer when it was released. There ARE still some bugs in this game as it obviously wasn't ready for a final build. Aparently when you unlock the three secret characters, they can disappear after a time. The only solution known at this time is to go online and fight as those characters in order to lock them down. I would expect a patch soon.
This wasn't the greatest Mortal Kombat of the series, I still prefer the second over pretty much all others. I understand why it wasn't the one released as MKII is unlocked in Shaolin Monks and Ed Boon wanted to put out something that hasn't been seen lately. The game is still worth it's 10 bucks and definitely outshadows Lumines' failure last week (with all of the locked play modes).