So, I’m currently midway through a playthrough of 3, and it hasn’t escaped my attention that this is by far the most controversial title in the series. It’s got a solid following, an assload of memes, and as best I can tell sold pretty well. But that doesn’t prevent a large swath of fans from treating it like apocrypha. And to an extent I get why. So to start things off I’ll give my own personal list of pros and cons compared to the rest of the series (Also just to be clear this ain’t a call out of any kind, I’m eager to hear perspectives).

Pros:

Best police system of the series. With witnesses calling the cops that you can stop, and the search zone function, this feels like a title home run to me.

Best stealth in the series. Maybe it’s a bit overpowered, the way enemies react to the whistle with only one ever approaching is a little silly, but whenever I tried to stealth in 1 and 2 I always felt like I got detected by bullshit, so, flawed is better then bad in my book.

Best driving in the series. This seems a little more controversial, but it feels smoother and easier to control to me.

Great characters and setting. The historic roots, from Roosevelt addresses in 1 to gasoline ration vouchers in 2 were always some of my favorite parts of this series. And boy do they double down on these in 3. From the deeper dive into racism in the era, to the ongoing Nixon-Humphrey discourse on the radio, to coverage of national race riots, to the whole Remy Duval thing, I love it. Add in star characters like Donovan and Vito, and it’s got a cast I have a lot of fun with too.

Cons

It ain’t a mafia story. Where past games have heavily focused on Italian mafia families dealing with one another while other groups are secondary, this one flips the script. The main Italian mob presence is the primary enemy faction (I don’t count Vito’s crew as they have no ethnic requirement and aren’t accepted as a family by the commission), who sometimes is represented by complete outsiders, like the Dixie Mafia. Instead it focuses more on racial issues and general crime. The story it does tell is great imo, but I do wish the mafia groups this series was based on played a bigger role.

Too open ended. Some freedom and world objectives are great to have to expand a game and make the world feel more full, but uh… “kill three guys to blow up some construction supplies and make a number go down 5%” isn’t exactly my idea of fun, and I’m sure it’s not most of yours either. Likewise, the actual racket locations, A, you often have to do twice (though sometimes at least with some variation, like the crane you knock over at the construction site in downtown), and B, are just killing a ton of guys, again. TLDR of this point, I want more than just the final mission of each area to be close ended and designed like an actual mission instead of just a place to clear.

Progression systems are TOO essential. You have to manually travel to Sammy’s to stash your money until you recruit Vito. You can’t get a car delivered in a game with no classic garage until you recruit Burke. You have to manually collect kickbacks from three different places all over the map until you get Vito’s earn to $140k. It feels like basic QoL features are locked behind milestones that can take 10+ hours to achieve, which is plain annoying.

You don’t feel like the boss. In cutscenes Lincoln tears shit up, forces people who hate each other to get along with a combination of hope and fear, and it’s awesome. Then the game resumes, and you get sent from their hq, with ~40 people, to go on some insane mission solo, which I personally always wind up doing stealth. If only I had three full gangs worth of muscle behind me, huh? This only gets worse when you’re staring at a gun you can’t afford after you just did a side mission to expand your damn international weapons smuggling operation. You also have no personal HQ or personal gang to hold these other groups in line, which just feels silly. The net result is that I don’t feel like the boss during the actual game, at any point, which is unfortunate to see. I wish you could bring along companions, lay ambushes with a group of your men, get yourself a personal HQ and a personal gang to keep the underbosses in line, and requisition more dramatic things the way enemy gangs are able to do.