Forza 3 is loaded with content and exciting throughout most of the game.
As with most racing games, the main point of Forza is to win races, gain spending points, and become the best racer in existence. The races early on are very short, but they rapidly become longer and more dragged out as you progress. The difficulty, similarly, starts out very easy and then quickly becomes more difficult late in the game. With the long races, we already come upon one of Forza's few faults. Some of these races drag on much too long and can become repetitive in the second half of the campaign. A new addition to the franchise, eliciting mostly mixed reactions, is the ability to rewind at any time during the race. While this makes the game much easier, you aren't forced to use, benefit from not doing so in multiple ways, and obviously can't do it online. The late game is difficult enough that most races won't be decided by the rewind.
For the most part though, Forza 3 is belted down with exciting gameplay. The crashes (and damage resulting from) are awesome and fairly realistic. The controls are tight and work extremely well even with the worst of cars. Going off the road, whether it's into grass or dirt, will slow you down. There aren't many shortcuts at all, mostly forcing you to simply be the best racer. The tracks are mostly well-designed and there's about every kind of track you could hope for available. Regular off-road tracks, huge oval tracks, drag-racing tracks, etc. Each kind will be raced during the campaign and they're all readily available to race at any time. The main campaign consists of racing many Event races and then racing a main series that really earns you money. Other than that, many other Event races can be completed at any time and getting gold medals in all of them can be quite rewarding.
As the later sections of the campaign become less attractive, you may want to find alternate ways to have fun around those races. Two-player split-screen is available (bot racers can be added) and it can be quite fun to goof around for a while with close friends. The more serious races can be found in Forza 3's sublime online system. Obviously, you will be without your little helpers like the rewind, but these races can be really entertaining. You can choose to race in a private party with friends or with random people. The races can be exhilarating either way, and rewarding as well. Being able to take your customized cars online can really have you stick out, making the races more interesting in yet another way than the single-player ones. With point systems and leaderboards loaded with many different statistics, Forza 3's online system is complete.
There are plenty of ways to spend your hard-earned points. Buying new cars (hundreds available) is just the beginning. New parts can also be bought to upgrade your cars in just about every way, and after earning enough points with each manufacturer's cars, you earn discounts. These discounts can be really worth your while because as you level up, you earn even more free cars. And yes, the upgrades can be taken off to lower the level of a car to fit the requirements of certain Event races. You can also go online and bid on cars people have made and are willing to sell. You can often get good prices on good cars, though this can make the beginning of the game even easier. You can buy these cars customized and even sell logos for people to buy and add to their cars. It's a brilliant system that is awesome even to just mess around with.
The customization available for your cars is incredible. Along with the upgrades available, you can paint them in whatever ways you see fit and add logos and themes to them to really make them look unique. Not only do I love to make my cars look sharp, but I have even bought and transformed a Nissan Sentra into an exact replica of the brown Sentra I drive in real life. Winning some races with that was not only hilarious, but extremely amusing. There is so much to add, so much to fine-tune with your cars... it's really an awesome customization system and probably the best of any racer this gen. Being able to show these cars off online during some frantic races is the icing on the cake.
The visuals in Forza 3 are stunning. If the excellent level design wasn't good enough, you really get some beautiful, even epic, sights to behold during many of the races. The physics are superb, with the cars driving (and crashing) as realistically as I've seen in a video game. I really love the lighting effects, and seeing the sun setting on a mountain roadway is stunning. The big city levels are spectacular, the mountainous town settings are remarkable, and many others (like the dessert roadways) are equally beautiful. The amount of detail put into all of the environments is obviously outstanding. The cars themselves, as expected, are beautiful. The only beef I have is that the view from the inside of the cars, while good in some parts and realistic to what is actually in said cars (and I can attest to that myself with my Sentra in real life and in-game), looks a bit tacky. But other than that, Forza 3's graphics are breathtaking.
Forza 3's soundtrack is also great, with dozens of songs to enjoy while racing. They mostly match the game well and typically stay at a low tone so you can stay concentrated on your race. They just match the racing genre seamlessly. The other sound effects stay on par with what you would expect from a racing game. The roar of the engines, the screech of tires, the thunderous crashes when accidents happen, it's all there and sounding better than ever. I actually found the sound effects during crashes to be improved over most racing games; the sounds of wrecks are really realistic and not cheap-sounding in this game.
The impressive visuals, remarkable online modes, tight gameplay, and outstanding customization results in a Forza that can't be missed by fans of the racing genre. For people even considering a racing game, Forza 3 is the best current option for you. The many modes available to play, along with a very lengthy campaign, means that you will get all that you pay for. The game, especially the longer races starting around the middle section of the campaign, can definitely start to drag, so Forza 3 isn't for absolutely everybody. But it's terribly hard not to recommend a game that is so excellently developed. Forza 3 is an excellent racer.