A solid shooter at its core.
Now that that is out of the way, let's talk first about what Crysis 3 did right. The first thing that we will all notice when you run a game (any game) is the loading screen. Unlike most games where you have to sit through a number of self-promotional company logos, Nvidia, AMD, Activision, Bethesda, Enix, etc, etc, just to name a few, you don't have to in Crysis 3. You can skip those intro clips by hitting "Enter". Unlike most games where the sound of the intro clips cannot be controlled, you can in Crysis 3. It is controlled by the "global volume" slider.
After the loading screens, next is the game menu. The game menu is simple and intuitive. "Enter" means "OK", "Esc" mean "Cancel". Menu navigation has never been easier. Mouse support works flawlessly. Keyboard is 100% configurable.
When we start playing the game, the first thing we would notice is the graphics -- high resolution, no screen tearing, smooth frame rate, no stuttering. Audio? Audio quality is great. Like every other game, you'll be able to adjust the volume of the music, special effects, and dialogue separately. What sets Crysis 3 apart is once the volume is set, the loudness is fixed. The audio wouldn't just drop off all of a sudden, like in Skyrim.
After you've played for a while, you'll be impressed at how stable Crysis 3 is. It never crash -- not once. The rendering engine is excellent, you won't have to deal with glitches like missing textures, floating objects, or getting stuck in "space". Contrast that with Skyrim. Crysis 3 is also well optimized. If you check your CPU usage, it utilizes all cores. From a programmer stand point, Crysis 3 is perfect.
What about gameplay? As far as the gameplay is concern, it is a pretty standard first person shooter. The set is unique -- a futuristic world, with aliens, corporate organizations, and resistant groups. The storyline is simplistic -- you wake up from your cryogenic sleep, reunite with your old time buddy, get up to speed on the on-going, and assist your old friend in the fight against aliens.
So what's there to hate about Crysis 3. It can feel repetitive at times. More often than not, you would rely on the same strategy -- scan for enemies, take them down one by one, stay hidden for a short while, and repeat. The plus side of it is, the maps are unique. You won't see "cut and paste" caves or strongholds scattered all over the map. Crysis 3 is not an open world game, at least not in the true sense. There's no human interaction, no creatures interaction, and no aliens interaction. It's just the 4 characters, a deer (I know how weird it sounds), and the A.I.'s (artificial intelligences).
A game should be rated by how much fun a person could get out of it; we should not concern ourselves with whether it is an open world game or not, or if it's popular or not, or if had the bugs been ironed out, it could potentially have been a great game...
With that said, Crysis 3 is definitely an 8.0 at the very least.