Dead Space 3 was nominated on our "most disappointing games of the year" list, so I thought I might take a moment to think back on a game that I actually found shockingly solid, despite my initial trepidation about it. I personally would venture that DS3 was one of my favorite surprises of the year, especially coming after my largely negative experience with Dead Space 2 (which threw game-breakingly powerful items at you at the start of the game, for free, if you got the game of the year edition on Steam) and the fairly worrying announcements that were made about Dead Space 3 leading up to its release.

The biggest, reddest flag for me about Dead Space 3 was the announcement that the whole game could be played in both co-op or singleplayer modes. I was very prepared to simply write off the game entirely at that point, as most games that feature combined co-op and single-player campaigns do so very poorly, with the possible exception of action RPGs like the Diablo games. I've never particularly been all that interested in playing co-op games, so my experiences with stuff like Borderlands have largely come via playing their single-player campaigns.

Action games like Borderlands or Diablo can scale themselves up for multiple players fairly easily, of course, so creating something that works in both modes has never been particularly tough for them. Dead Space has never leant itself well to that style of run-and-gun gameplay. It's a horror game, set in tight corridors, focusing on slow exploration, picking up audio logs, reading journals, and occasional bursts of intense action rather than running and gunning. I didn't see how they could make it work as a co-op game.

EA made a lot of promises to skeptics like me before the game came out, claiming that the co-op integration was going to be seamless and that its development wouldn't affect the single-player campaign, and so on. I loved Resident Evil 4 more than anything else on the GameCube, and got only a couple of hours into Resident Evil 5 before my AI teammate frustrated me so much that I simply gave up, so naturally I was less than ready to believe everything they said. There was plenty of forum chatter going around about their open desire to appeal to new players, the inclusion of an action-roll button that was straight out of Gears of War, having more characters appear, having Isaac speak more than he ever had before, and so on.

When I'm skeptical about something, usually this industry does its best to realize my worst fears, so kudos to EA: virtually none of my worries were actually borne out in the game.

The biggest of these was, as mentioned, the influence of co-op play on the single-player game. I played through the entire game in single-player mode, and was almost never struck with the idea that it was intended or even designed for co-op play. There were some small exceptions, of course; some of the door-unlocking puzzles seemed likely to have been designed for two players, and near the end of the game you start running across the co-op character more often, but it largely felt unchanged from the series' roots in a "one dude exploring creepy places" kind of vibe.

Maybe that meant the co-op felt tacked-on; I played about an hour of it and it felt acceptable. Either way, I'd much prefer to have co-op feel bad than have single-player suck, and most of my experiences in the past have either come with the latter experiences or strictly separate co-op/SP experiences (e.g. Portal 2) than with games that have tried to convert themselves from a single-player franchise to one that includes a bolted-on co-op option. Dead Space 3 threaded the needle in a way that was basically undetectable to me as a primarily single-player person, and Visceral deserves a lot of credit for that.

A lot of the other complaints wound up being relatively minor. I don't remember ever using the combat roll thing, so that wasn't a big deal. I was never harassed by any kind of microtransaction or DLC prompt that I can recall, so those never bothered me at all, either. (Nothing seemed unbalanced about the game without spending extra cash on it, in other words.) The pacing and progression of the gun creation stuff felt fine, and the crafting system wound up leading to some interesting (if overpowered) gun possibilities.

Even the notion of Isaac Clarke and his Merry Gang wound up not affecting the ebb and flow of the creepiness too much. Yes, it was a little weird seeing Isaac interact with real humans in the flesh as often as he did, especially for someone who began the series as a silent protagonist, but you still spent the vast bulk of your time crawling through corridors alone, and it allowed for some great setpieces like the shuttle crash. And they avoided throwing in any escort missions, which alone forces me to give the developers some kudos.

I can't speak as to anyone else's experience with the game; maybe it was a massive letdown for people who care enough about the series to have read the novels and watched the anime, etc. Speaking as someone who liked Dead Space 1 and was let down by the GOTY edition of Dead Space 2 just because of balance issues, though, DS3 was a fine capper to the series and a heck of a good time even as an isolated experience. Having not read any reviews of it (and having not listened to the podcast discussion about it), I don't know why it would be in the running for our most disappointing game of the year, but hey: for what it's worth I really enjoyed it. It'd be a shame if there won't be any more of them.

The end.

I think you should get everyone to put puppy gifs in their articles from now on.

Rorie play more games.

yeah but...the final boss is a planet

No, I read the novels, comics, played all the games, watched the animated movies, and Dead Space 3, while it did disappoint in a few very important ways (characters; setting and dialogue), was still an overall great game. All I will say, since I don't feel like talking about Dead Space right now, as I've done in the past in fine detail, is that I'm surprised that this game's nominated as one of the most disappointing, though Brad did seem pretty letdown. I guess it's understandable, in my personal opinion anyways.

While DS3 was one of my most played games of the year alongside my favorite games of the year, it probably wouldn't be in my top five games of the year (perhaps ten), and the original two are among my favorite games ever made, while this is merely one of my favorite of the year. I hope we see more Dead Space, and yes, it would be a huge shame to not see more of them. Something that differs for me than I believe most other DS fans is that while I love the horror aspect from the games, it's not what I was in it for, I liked it because of the sci-fi.

It got me into science fiction and all things space science far more than I had ever been, and I'd honestly not have the same interests nor have the knowledge I do today if it wasn't for Dead Space.

I enjoyed Dead Space 1 and Dead Space 2 ended up being one of my favorite games of the generation. Everything I saw about Dead Space 3 was so off putting that I didn't even give it a chance. I think I'll eventually rent it just to know how far they strayed away from the 2nd game.

Sounds like in general with trilogies the last game is the failure. It doesn't live up to the expectation its predecessor has set and kinda falls to the waste side. Usually its either cause the story falls flat or the game is the exact same and doesn't evolve or change any of the mechanics drastically. Dead Space 3 wasn't that bad of a game it just fell flat from doing things the same.

I wasn't able to finish it but I'm super interested to see what they do if they ever make a Dead Space 4. Dat DLC Ending.

Keep them puppies coming. I can't believe how cute those are.

Also, microtransactions and coop aside, DS3 is generic in the most EA-ass way possible.

I found Dead Space 3 to be largely mediocre frankly (shameless plug!). It starts off OK, and I even sorta liked the Blade Runner-esque opening aesthetic despite the crappy inclusion of human enemies, and also causing a massive car pile up killing who knows how many innocents as a means to show you how to use stasis.

Exploring throughout space is pretty damn awesome as well, but as soon as you land on that ice planet, it all just gets progressively worse, with a constant flurry of more vent ambushes and the like that by now comes across as trite. Constantly climbing up/rappelling down the cliffs was tedious and rather frustrating most of the time too, and the parts where you're boosting through scripted space, trying to avoid all of the debris, was pretty damn annoying as that

Much like a problem I had with Dead Space 2 as well, the game just starts throwing a ridiculous amount of enemies at you during the end stretch, only now it's even worse because of the added contingent of enemies with guns!

God, and then there's the boring side missions that all just keep repeating the same environments DAII style, woefully terrible story/character interactions (most of which you can't skip through), and... well, overall I found a lot of the game to be rather boring frankly. A lot of the tension is quickly evaporated when you notice just how much damn ammo and healing supplies you're always rolling around with.

It basically came across like a direct-to-DVD equivalent of a sequel, with a lot of what you remember about Dead Space, only a lot more slapdash.

I played that game in coop by the way, and it's pretty hilarious how weak the coop is implemented in the game. Despite how this game was marketted, its single-player was very clearly given priority here. Adding in John Carver is more akin to dropping in another Master Chief in a Halo game more so than introducing something to change up the dynamic of the story/gameplay.

Listening to the GOTY Bombcast NECROMORPH PLANET SON.

So I skipped Dead Space 3 entirely cause I thought it looked stupid but man... after hearing Brad say that on the podcast today. I feel... like I should play DeadSpace 3 that sounds so goddamn incredibly dumb that I sort of need to see it.

Wait, I'm pretty sure the end boss was a moon, not a planet? It's ridiculous either way, but... a killer moon is slightly less so.

@demoskinos: Give it a shot, for entertainment value if nothing else. Hilariously, late game story revelations surrounding the necro moons basically gave Dead Space 3 the same story as another EA sci fi trilogy. Three guesses which one.

Those pics are rated M for Magical.

I got a bunch of mixed responses so I'm really curious what my final thoughts would. Unfortunately, I'm still a game and a half (and a movie, and a novel, and a Wii shooter) away from part 3.

I agree the co-op and microtransactions didn't actively hurt the game the way they often can, but it definitely didn't help and made for a different experience. But more importantly, the combat, setting and story were just completely different, for the worse.

The old Dead Space combat was restricting, with slow movement, limited ammo, and required precision with dismemberment. The result was a game that was incredibly tense but required you to control your fear in order to survive and efficiently take down enemies. Spraying and praying worked to your detriment if you didn't dismember properly. Dead Space 3 was just a basic shooter. You unloaded on hordes of enemies and used crazy weapons with interchangeable ammo to mow them down.

Other things like the crew that Isaac rolled with, the story going off the rails, and the long badly-paced stretches. All just contributed to it being a worse game overall, though really it was the destruction of the horror and tension that did it for me. Dead Space as a generic sci-fi co-op shooter is just not as appealing. Games like that a dime a dozen.

I thought it was a fine enough game, but nowhere near the quality, design, or atmosphere of the first two, so I could see why it made the most disappointing list. I don't think it was bad enough to warrant inclusion compared to Forza, Battlefield, or especially SimCity. But I also don't have great interest in playing another Dead Space game at this point.

I played through Dead Space 3 coop with a friend and I found it largely enjoyable. My one and only problem with it was that the guns were so good that there was no reason to ever strategically dismember anything, even on hard difficulty! Seriously, by the end of the game I had no reason to aim for the limbs and just pointed my GATLING SPEAR GUN WITH A ROCKET ATTACHMENT THAT STASIS'D EVERYTHING IT TOUCHED at the center mass of every fleshy space zombie that came at me.

Also, I don't think Dead Space 2 ever got a GOTY edition. At least, not on Steam from the page I'm looking at right now.

Dead Space 2 is far and away my favorite game of all time (note that I said "favorite" and not "greatest"), and I loved DS3. It's not nearly as cohesive and focused as DS2 was, and it has one of the worst cases of deus ex machina in recent history, but on the whole its absolutely a worthy followup to DS2. I even liked the story; I totally get where people are coming from when they talk about how ridiculous and stupid it is, but there are a few good twists and they do a good job tying into (and tying together) existing mythology while adding a bunch of new stuff that may or may not be up your alley (although again, the magical device near the end of the game is pretty lame).

I still haven't played the DLC (which I already bought), mostly due to the fact that by the time it came out I had already beaten the game 3+ times and was getting a little fatigued on it, but reading about how nuts it gets, I really hope they get to make a Dead Space 4 to see where that game could possibly go. I just worry that the general reaction was so needlessly negative that they'll never get the chance.

Also, to everyone who bitches about how DS3 isn't scary at all, and how DS2 is way too action-y, go play Dead Space 1 again. Seriously. I did it recently, and other than some good atmosphere and a couple jump scares, DS1 was only truly creepy in a couple instances, and DS2 (and 3 at points) get just as gnarly.

I guess I never got the hate for the introduction of co-op in Dead Space. The Dead Space series were incredibly influenced by System Shock (Dead Space even started off as System Shock 3 back in 2006 before they changed the name, likely due to the issues with the IP back then, which only started getting solved this year), and System Shock 2 did have co-op - I played through the entire game that way, and I'd say it may even have made the experience more tense, as now you were two (or up to four, though save games had a habit of getting corrupted if you did that) people trying to find some ammo, food or a shotgun that wasn't broken in a ship where death could be around any corner.

If you thought that DS2 had a problem with its power curve (based on bonus stuff that you probably could've ignored), I don't see how you couldn't say the same for 3, given that by the end you are quite capable of running around with a Rocket Launcher/Contact Beam and never running out thanks to universal ammo (a trait DS3 shares with Deus Ex: Invisible War). It's fun and goofy in its own way, and indeed I would like to see that weapon crafting system in a better game, but it's not in any way balanced.

I think I would've liked Dead Space 3 if its back half wasn't so aggressively mediocre. The first half, on the flotilla of ships and the first bit of the ice planet is genuinely decent, but there's a turning point where it becomes increasingly worse, around the point where you're running around mostly identical environments fighting the same handful of Necromorphs popping out of the vents that you'd expect them to pop out of. Also the story is incredibly stupid, and not necessarily in a way I can get behind.

NECROMORPH MOON. That's all I'm saying.

I'm gonna plug in my thoughts from my Top 10 list, where it made #10 (though Bravely Default probably belongs in that spot now, been loving it).

I loved Dead Space 3. Sure, the human enemies weren't exactly a welcome addition (though I never found their presence troublesome) and the weapon crafting system reeks of being built purely to include microtransactions (though the game is generous enough with resources that you never need use them). But I found the game a much more atmospheric and tense experience than Dead Space 2's bombast. I also felt that the wrecked fleet and ice planet felt much more like believable and consistent places than Dead Space 2's The Sprawl - which just felt like a series of videogame environments. I also much preferred Dead Space 3's ending, and LOVED the pure ridiculousness of it. Obviously I'm in the minority with this opinion but for my money Dead Space 3 is the second best game in the series (Dead Space being my favourite). I'm saddened to hear that Visceral are likely working on Military Shooter #5432 for their next project.

Seriously, I fucking loved that. Just pure videogame ridiculousness in the most awesome way. YOU FIGHT THE MOON BY FIRING MARKERS INTO ITS EYES. IT'S SO DUMB AND SO GREAT. This is a series where you've fought things like giant worms, where its best boss fights are "videogamey" shoot-the-orange-weak-spots silliness, I'd much rather Dead Space 3's final boss than Dead Space 2's awful boss/ending sequence.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

For what it's worth, I've had DS3 and Awakening sitting in my Origin library for months now so maybe I'll finally play them (along with the ten other games I want to play during my break).

I only opened this thread to see puppies.

Little correction to Rorie's regarding Dead Space 2: There is no GOTY version of Dead Space 2, all items that DLC/promo equipment in the console versions were unlocked in the PC version (there's only one) of the game via a patch - there's a story behind that.

The extra weapons and armors were included on-disc (or in-download as the case may be), no big surprise there, but it turns out that they were trivial to unlock. Within a day or two of release someone had found that all of the DLC content from the console versions could be unlocked by a relatively simple edit to a small file in the PC version, which was then quickly disseminated for download. Compounding the situation is that there was no way to buy or otherwise officially obtain this DLC on PC. Dead Space 2 was released before Origin - before EA had their own method of selling DLC on PC. There were of course already other ways, like Steam, but EA has always fairly uncooperative with Steam (they were the last of the big publishers to start selling games there and now the first to stop...). So an easy to perform crack, coupled with no official way to procure the DLC, and no communication from EA on whether there ever would be a way to get it meant that plenty of people were exploiting this crack - including those who may otherwise be legitimate purchasers but were left with no legal alternative.

The cat already being so far out of the bag, and it being unclear whether EA ever had any plans to sell the DLC on PC anyway, one of the later patches to the game simply made the DLC unlock official. Which means that anyone playing the PC version after that point has access to a whole slew of balance ruining equipment as Rorie mentions. It's a shame, and it's a shame that the game was saddled by such an abundance of unnecessary, game ruining equipment reskins just so EA had something to sell to begin with.

It's been quite some time since I last checked and I'm not entirely sure of this, but I believe that someone did figure out how to reverse the DLC unlock and restore the game to a "vanilla" state and thus a more balanced and entertaining equipment progression.

(Update: Indeed it appears you can restore the game to it's original state by simply downloading a modified exe [or alternatively a rather convoluted process that involves downloading the unpatched version of the game from Origin - for those who are irrationally scared of the former option] details here.)

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I'm a big fan of both Dead Space 1 and 2, but I chose not to buy Dead Space 3 after hearing of the microtransactions. Maybe they don't ruin the game, but I feel they have no place in a $60 game and I wanted to stick to my guns and vote with my wallet instead of just impotently complaining on the internet.

I was later given a copy by a friend who got an extra key when EA did their Humble Bundle, but I have yet to play it.

First Carpenter, now you. I'm really glad I picked this up when it was on sale earlier this year. I still haven't gotten around to booting it up, but I'm looking forward to it.

The reason I loved playing the first two Dead Space games were putting on headphones and turning out the lights. The sounds in those games are top notch. Hearing things crawling through vents and knocking down metal pipes. Just great atmosphere. I felt that in 3 it lost some of that in my eyes.

I was totally alright with DS3. It breaks from its lineage in many ways, but as a game without pushing any preconceived notion about what it ought to be, that game's alright. Would I have preferred a more survival horror game? Probably.

Skip the whole convoluted thread and replace the exe with the original one pre-free-DLC-debacle: http://bo3b.net/deadspace2.exe

You're a scattered thought.

I'm with you Rorie. High five!

Interesting reading your thoughts on this game, Rorie. I'm glad you had a fun experience with it, but I thought it was awful...and not for any of the reasons you mentioned: microtransactions, co-op, etc.

I just found the game woefully boring, which is kinda the worst thing for a game. I almost stopped playing half a dozen times, but forced myself to slog through the remainder of the experience. For me, it fails equally as a horror game (so there was no tension keeping me glued to the screen), and as an action game (so no interesting gameplay either). At some point, I had to stop doing the side-quests because they were just copy-pasted environment assets, a la Dragon Age 2, and to be honest, I just wanted to be done.

Almost every combat encounter felt like way too many enemies just directly running at Isaac as fast as possible (except for the human enemies, who hide behind cover for a bit before sprinting in the player's direction, I guess). Maybe it was because I had the difficulty on hard (since that's what I played DS1 & 2 on), but I found not having the ripper and/or a shotgun on you at all times was a surefire way to get killed by the aforementioned enemies, so I found myself unable to experiment with the crafting system all that much; this is unfortunate, I actually liked that bit.

Story-wise, I found all the writing and character interactions to be just incredibly flat, so there wasn't even that to carry things along. The whole weird battling of affection between Issac and Ellie and the other guy, I dunno. And man that ending is so dumb. And not in a good way.

Sorry to rant so much! I still legitimately enjoyed a reading a complete opposite perspective, things are boring otherwise.

Dont get how you can sit through the ~30 scenes where the camera pans just enough to let the other dude disappear without you seeing it or someone says "You find your own way"/ "I'll (magically) meet you there" and not be distracted by how obvious it is. There is literally a boss fight where he is yelling at you what to do as if he's standing right next to you when, story wise, he's not supposed to be any where near you.

The most disappointing thing this year was how Dead Space 3 completely falls apart after you land on the planet. The first 3 hours are full of fantastic space exploration in between creepy derelict ship sections with genuinely scary moments. Its a shame most of the the last 3/4 boils down to walk into a room, wait for the vents to explode and the doors to lock and then fight your way through too many waves of enemies. And I wont even go into detail on the fantastic story.

The 3 or 4 times you get to sneak around those blind(?) skinny dudes is the best thing about the planet stuff.

Only @rorie can make a Dead Space game looks so cute.

Chomp. Chomp chomp.

@demoskinos: you're not literally fighting a planet. Patrick and Brad tend to really exaggerate this point whenever discussing the game. As if in a game full of space zombies, ghosts and ancient civilizations, fighting a sentient hive mind that has grown to the size of a small moon through years of convergence is suddenly stepping over an invisible line of common sense.

Largely, I enjoyed my time with Dead Space 3. I found the combat to be the best of the series, and found the atmosphere to be just as strong. My issues lie in the relationships between the characters. The whole melodramatic interactions between Ellie and Isaac were just plain annoying at times. While the ending was..interesting, it didn't offend me. The Dead Space lore has always been a little weird and crazy. They took it to the extreme and I'm kinda happy with how it turned out.

Was only just talking about this game the other day. The biggest problem was doing all of the side missions as they always gave you a ton of stuff to upgrade your weapons with making an already pretty easy game even easier.

I could have sworn that game lasted 40 hours, but It was probably far closer to 20. It just became really monotonous by the end. Almost every room was greeted with us saying "I bet we'll get ambushed from that vent" and lo and behold...

@golguin: Is that a joke? They strayed away from the original in three, but it closely resembles two, just with a worse setting; characters; and dialogue.

@gunstarred: The upgrades is what bothered you? It was simply the repetitive, often dull look and feel to the areas you go to in side missions that I disliked.

I played all 3 main Dead Space games and enjoyed 3 so I don't see it as most disappointing either. The weapon crafting was really well done I thought. The end of the game on the ice planet does drag on a bit. Maybe I wasn't disappointed because I knew after the first one (which is my favorite) that the game was going to be more action focused and so it didn't bother me as much. The COOP felt tacked on for sure... playing it singleplayer and having the other dood randomly show up is a bit jarring.

I feel like I had a better time playing it than the 2nd one and the 2nd one seems to be most people's favorite of the series. Not sure what happened there... maybe I should go replay the 2nd one.

Dont understand people complaining about monsters popping out of vents in Dead Space 3. Walking into a room and having necromorphs pop out of vents was basically the crux of the first two games. The only reason some might find it bothersome in 3 is because you're experiencing the same gameplay element for the third time in a row.

Yeah, reading what I wrote again I worded it wrong. My main problem was just the side stuff in general due to its repetitive and dull nature. The upgrades just contributed to it.

I felt they were done better in the original. I loved two just as much as the original, but what started in two and carried into three is that in the original, to make it more scary, they wouldn't only pop out of the vents, they'd also jump back in to get the better of you, while in two and three, all they did was come out of the vents, in numbers and attack you. It didn't come off as, as smart, but more cheap if anything. I'm not you'd see complain about it, but it is a thing to acknowledge still. It's one of the few reasons as to why I personally didn't find two and three as scary as the first.

Moon, but whatever.

I came for the Rorie thoughts, but I stayed for the puppy gifs.

I don't really have an opinion on DS3 but I'm totally down with the idea of expressing its gameplay with puppies.

@ntm: I honestly can't tell the difference and I'm a huge fan of this series. Dead Space 1 was definitely like a lovesong catered to all my interests. I loved the aesthetic of the sci-fi equipment, Isaac's suit and weapons, the act of having to repair the ship which actually made sense - hydroponics, navigation, engines etc. I liked the second game a lot but the sprawl started to get away from the raw, 90's, industrial looking sci fi that I fell in love with in the first game. I didn't want to be running around a space mall or a nursery, I wanted to go into insane looking engine compartments and repairing "auxiliary deflectors arrays" or whatever. Granted there were a few of those areas and the section where you go back to the Ishimura was a treat, but the mood just wasn't the same. I had no issues with the way they overhauled the controls as that just made the game better in my opinion, although I did kinda miss the incredibly wacky 3D map.

The third game started to speak to me in the derelict fleet. I started having some awesome flashbacks to good ol' Dead Space 1 and being Isaac Clarke the engineer. Despite this, it was the regurgitated game mechanics that really stopped me from truly enjoying the third game as much as I wish I could. I wrote a review for it on this fine website that I won't bother linking but I gave it a solid 3/5. The ice planet was fine with me, some great moments happened there. The gun crafting was great as well. Several sequences in Dead Space 3 easily trump the first two games in their cinematic scope. The end boss was fine, as I mentioned before it was nothing too ridiculous considering everything else that takes place in those games. It just wasn't enough NEW gameplay and the lack of new, interesting enemies was also a bummer. Not to mention that I hated all the regenerator boss fights up until Dead Space 3, and the newest version were probably my least favorite of them all.

I have nothing to contribute about Dead Space 3, but that first pug is the cutest thing I've seen.

I just beat DS3 like 3 hours ago. I agree that it's a solid game but it's a bit disappointing imo. Still a good game though. The after credits dialogue tells me there should be a sequel. I'm going to YouTube the DLC.

It's actually a moon. Get it straight!

A moon buddy. Geez, get it right.

I loved that part too, the Ishimura, it's one of my favorite game settings in all of gaming, or fiction ever, but I'm also interested in what other locations look like, and what other places were previously lived in by a futuristic society, in the Dead Space universe, but for me, the third game didn't do it as well as I had hoped (and the derelict, 200 year old ships were nowhere near as great as the Ishimura, nor was the insides of the buildings on Tau Volantis; it was as it simply was, dark; rusty, and dull looking). It was hard for my imagination to spark up anything truly amazing from it.

I completely disagree about the ridiculous part. For me, to think back to what you did in the first game, and even the second, it just goes from isolated on a desolate ship, which I felt was far more plausible, to fighting a moon. I say ridiculous, and I will always stick to that because well, it's true, but when it comes to execution, I feel like what they had done with it was done well, though I wouldn't have minded if they took a different approach.

In DS3, they took out some of the enemies actually, and replaced them with the same type but in a different style, for story purposes though that made sense. It's too bad that they actually took out some enemies altogether though. The reason to me that it didn't feel as great to shoot necromorphs is because, especially just after you kill Norton, they are more bullet spongy; even more importantly, they don't react to gunfire until they're about to die, and it just becomes unsatisfying.

The thing about Dead Space 3 as well, which I dislike in games (another most recent game would be Far Cry 3), is that after a good while of getting all the stuff you can when it comes to weapons, there's very little point in trying to explore different ways when you get the most powerful and most useful weapons, like the Rocket Launcher. It not only makes it less fun to shoot guys aside from the bullet spongy, non reactive feel, but also makes it far too easy. In Dead Space, I'm all about the atmosphere, and the first and second did that perfectly well to me, but in three, I didn't love it.

I liked the exterior stuff more, but very little of the interior. There are crazy moments in both the first and second, but I thought they were still more realistic since its scale, while large, was nowhere near the scale of saying you're fighting a moon, that's... Ridiculous. What moments are you referring to when it comes to cinematic scope? I can perhaps agree with you, but I'm just curious. Overall, as I've said many times before, DS3 is still a really great game in my opinion, but not as close as I had hoped it would be, and nowhere near as good as the first two in my opinion, in many respects.

Oh, and aside from Arrival, this is the first time I didn't pick up any of the DLC for a Dead Space game. It's not because of microtransactions though, that's a different story in which I will defend the game because it's such a negligible part, and there are ingame workarounds. I just didn't do it because I wasn't interested enough for once. Arrival was mediocre to me, but it still has me interested to see where the series can go from there. I am still waiting, and hoping to see where the side characters like Lexine Murdoch (or Weller) is, after she left The Sprawl.

Sorry if this was a TL;DR.

I definitely recommend playing the DLC. Coming from someone who listed DS3 as my most disappointing game for 2013, the DLC was everything I wanted the main game to be. Made me a bit sad.