A decent sequel, and a decent end to a franchise.
Taking place four years after previous game, the story follows Joe Capelli who sets out on a final mission to destroy the Chimera once and for all, who have decided to eradicate humanity as a result of a cure for the virus being created. Sadly, after this, no other games were planned. There was serious consideration for a 4th game in 2013, but nothing ever came of it since.
Capelli is now much more developed and interesting in this game. While he still has some anger issues, he's more relaxed and thoughtful as well as a very loving husband and father, so, instead of playing as Hale, you play as Capelli from the previous game, who's been dishonorably discharged as a result of his actions in said game. It actually returns to the original gameplay of the series while adding in a few things. Now, there's role playing mechanics that increase the power of weapons.
It has amazing graphics that are possibly the best in the entire series. The same can be said for the beautiful cutscene graphics and the voice acting, but not the audio. In fact there are plenty of audio issues. Sometimes it'll slow down and not match up with what's going on in the gameplay or character's voices won't match up.
Despite a cure being found for the virus, the Chimera themselves are still a major threat as most of the population is either dead or turned, which makes the game just as intense as the previous ones if not even more so. The story is improved from it's predecessor, which fixes a lot of problems present in it. Now the story is much more original and goes on it's own path rather than a CoD-like path or a Ghost Recon-like path. The level design additionally is less linear with plenty of different ways to explore a location and much fewer scripted segments; however, the levels are still pretty structured for the most part. It even has a much more satisfying ending than the previous game.
Enemies are no longer super bullet-spongey, but the gameplay isn't overly easy despite this. There are also some new enemies, and returning enemies have been more revamped to have new abilities.
The secondary firing system has been improved even further, now weapons have new abilities that are explained much better. For example, the Bullseye Mark II can now lock onto an enemy so that you can shoot them without aiming directly at them, and the Magnum shoots bombs that can be detonated at any time.
This is by far the very best yet for the PlayStation 3.
