They ruined Killzone 2 (my favourite online FPS) to sell Moves and 3D televisions.
All that being said, I'm still a cuckold because I bought the game to join all my old PSN friends and try to reclaim some small portion of the glory days. So as much as I would like to give Killzone a 1 out of 10 for ruining one of my favourite series, I tried to look at it objectively as if it were a standalone game.
The single player is actually pretty enjoyable. I always said that Killzone 2 was a simple story told very well. There's no mind blowing Kojima twists or Bioware ethical dilemmas but the environments, pacing, action, etc is all extremely well done. The characters are unlikable but their dialogue is still very believable and they are fleshed out pretty well for a FPS. Killzone 3 is much of the same. While it's shorter and lacks some of the meat of Killzone 2, the interesting dynamic between the Helghast leaders makes up for it.
I would go as far as to say that Stahl is the best villain I've seen in video game in a long time. I just wish the game was a little longer and he played a bigger part. I also have to specifically mention the stealthy jungle portion because it is so atrocious I'm embarrassed for anyone involved in making Killzone 3. What a horrendously obvious CoD rip off, right down to the goof wearing a bandana and a beard. What were they thinking? Have some pride.
The graphics are still the best you'll see on the consoles. The sound and music are outstanding.
There are quite a few glitches, the worst being how enemies can shoot you through walls and through the ground. There was one section of the jungle where you have to go over a hill and through a short corridor that I kept dying on when playing elite. Since the enemies could shoot me through the hill, I had to sprint over it, fire a few bullets and try to sprint back down it, getting shot the whole time. It's comical to watch bullets come out of the ground at you.
Elite was fairly easy without the clown car spawns that made Killzone 2 a gong show. Aside from some of the pointless rail shooting parts, there wasn't much that was frustrating on elite. Once again the cover button is so incredibly irritating especially when it sticks you to objects. There's no need for it, I'm perfectly capable of crouching behind an object in a FPS.
Unfortunately I have nothing positive to say about the multiplayer which is the reason I loved Killzone 2 so much. I could rant for hours about all the little things they ruined with Killzone 3. They sped up the game, reduced the recoil and health, unbalanced the classes, got rid of tactical spawns, and put in ridiculously cheated and frustrating weapons like the WASP turrets, jet packs and exos, etc etc etc.
Beyond the game play being wrecked, the multiplayer itself is terrible and inexplicably lacks so many features. Killzone 3 feels like a first time developer's first crack at making an online game. The clan system is nerfed, the party system doesn't work, you can't make custom matches, you can't even choose parameters for what kind of public matches you'd like to join, etc. Again they should be embarrassed.
But the worst thing that makes Killzone 3 mp frustratingly unplayable is the one shot kills that seem to happen all the time. You can't play the game for more than a few hours without this starting to drive you nuts. People aren't getting head shots on you but you keep going down in one shot. It doesn't make any sense. A lot of the time you don't even see bullets hitting you or someone shooting. My only explanation for this, is that it has something to do with lag because there's absolutely no slow down or laggy choppy dudes riding around the screen on hoverboards like in other games. They must have done something to cover up the lag and it's manifesting itself in these one shot kills. I can only assume the other person must have been shooting at me for a second or two and my ps3 wasn't registering that it was happening to me. How else do you explain this? My conspiracy theory is that it has something to do with that waste of time Move but whatever.
Killzone 3 broke my heart a long time ago when I first played it at PAX and realized what a big mess they made of my all time favourite online shooter. I tried to approach it with an open mind, just have fun and get some enjoyment out of it but I don't see myself playing this game in a month. I put over 400 hours in Killzone 2 and I can't imagine that I will play Killzone 3 for more than 30. What a shame.