Totally linear and unoriginal, with childish characters and dialogue
The gameplay is decidedly ho-hum. Max is guided along through each level as surely as if he were on rails. There are collectibles, but good luck getting them because you can't really wander around while working on the level's objective, and you can't go back later without replaying the whole level from scratch.
More problematic for a game that touts its storytelling is that the characters and dialogue are utterly puerile. It's like it was written by a 14-year-old kid who's desperately trying to *sound* like an adult. Sure, drop f-bombs every 5 seconds -- that's what real adults do, right? I realize it's just a video game, I'm not expecting Mamet-quality dialogue here, but unfortunately the developers were clearly shooting for "mature" content with "serious" overtones, and they definitely didn't deliver on that.
If you actually ARE a 14-year-old maybe you won't notice or care about these things (though technically you shouldn't be playing an M-rated game), but if you're an adult or have any interest in a game's characters or story, MP3 comes off as childish and pretentious. The polish and production values are the only things saving this game from being a total disaster.