Tough one to Decide Upon. But 5 may be a little low to be honest. !
First off Lost Planet 3 (LP3) is certainly not a bad game, but could have been much better for sure.
When you play, or begin playing, there is a sense of deja-vu that should come to ones mind, especially after playing Dead Space 3 and prequels.
The planet you find yourself on is an iced over and extremely rocky environment and terrain which almost looks too similar to Dead Space (DS), I don't know who copied who but they are pretty damn similar.
Where LP3 has advantage over DS is certainly most notably in the characters movement, movement is fluid and non strenuous at all, this got a huge tick in my book for LP3.
Other 3PS's are clunky and sticky, for example in Resident Evil its tough to maneuver effortlessly, Dead Space is often in tight spaces and thus turning around and aiming is challenging, LP3 was effortless in this regard and rather enjoyable.
Graphics wise, the previous reviewer I disagree with as I believe the graphics are rather decent.
For certain I did feel as if I was on some other planet.
Wind and storms blast across the surface and it all looks intriguing and realistic.
The only thing that disturbed me was when I stopped to look out over the planet surface from a mountain ledge, on the odd occasion one can see that the view is a still picture which was rather disappointing as clouds would not appear to move, basic stuff like that. However it didnt impact overly negatively.
Player models are great, metal structures are well crafted, aliens are decent too.
This is another tick in my book for LP3.
Fright factor?
To a degree yes there is, but DS has certainly got the high ground in that regard.
Often LP3 feels more shootery, or rather its a decent hybrid of scariness and action.
Aliens? Nothing overly special, other games have done better and worse.
I never found a huge problem here or anything to complain about, perhaps more imagination when creating these aliens could have been utilized.
Dead Space would certainly have the upper-hand here.
The exploration aspect of the game was pretty good to be honest.
At times you are required to venture forth through the icy, cold, and hazardous environment.
This means grappling from ledge to ledge, this also means carefully traversing cliff edges, it felt very much like Tomb Raider (TB) did, but obviously TB specialized more in this aspect, as expected.
I had plenty fun getting from point A to B on foot and this is another tick in my book.
Now for the really shit part.
The worst part which cost LP3 in my book was the amount of times you have to go back and forth between locations.
You go on the same route multiple times and this got overbearing at times.
Furthermore, these repetitive routes are not short, its almost felt like a cross-country type of journey.
This will certainly put many people off LP3 and I would understand why.
But for me I tend to like finishing what I have started before I sink my teeth into any of the other 80 games on my PC.
This back and forth thing takes place more often than not in your rig.
Basically the rig is a huge machine robot that looks similar to that Bioshock (B) robot.
Forgive me as I dont know much about B to be honest.
The machine looks awesome at the start of the game when you are introduced to it but soon it begins to become a piece of shit that is much weaker than it looks.
It moves damn slow and often it is the conduit that you travel in on this long ass journeys.
After LP3 I never want to see that machine again.
Overall, there are lots of points that one could slam the title for, but I also give credit where it is due.
This credit comes in the form of a decent story (decent for me), nice graphics, and immersion.
I definitely recommend it but its certainly not perfect.