Silent Hill 3 is easily the best game in the series.
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It was supposed to be another day for Heather Mason, she was hanging out at the mall like any other normal person would, until after making a phone call she encounters a detective who wishes to discuss something regarding her birth. Heather is creeped out by the detective and goes into the ladies room to escape the strange man, then sneaks out the window into a back alley of the mall. Little does she know that she has just stepped into a nightmare that she'll have to fight her way out of, that is, if she wants to survive.
Confused and disturbed by the things she sees, Heather continues onwards through her nightmare, hoping she'll escape and return home, somehow. What happens to Heather, who does she encounter and what monstrosities await her? You'll have to play to find out.
The story of Silent Hill 3 is both a simple one but complex at the same time. If you've played the original, you'll understand it even better, but if you haven't, you won't need to in order to fill in the gaps, The game gives you enough information to do that yourself. The story of Silent Hill 3 is one of the deepest as well as darkest and it doesn't let up on the suspense and mystery as you trek through each new area, and familiar areas from Silent Hill 2 if you played that installment of the series.
In terms of difficulty it varies for whatever level you choose at the beginning of the game. You have the basics at first: easy, normal, and hard. You have these choices for both "action level" and "riddle level", so if you're better at combat than you are at solving riddles, you don't have to worry about them being on the same difficulty level, although riddles and puzzles do get more complicated and harder to solve as you progress through the game. When it comes to fighting enemies, it's never too difficult because there's always a strategy for getting past them, whether it be dodging and running or using a melee weapon to fend them off. The nice thing is that you'll realize there aren't that many enemies to fight outside of boss battles, so it makes exploring and finding things easier.
While you won't find too many characters in Silent Hill 3, the ones that do exist often leave you with the most questions, namely the question of who is and who isn't on your side? You don't really find out until you've progressed through the game a bit and you put two and two together, realizing things about each character and how or why they are the way they are. The mystery and suspense in Silent Hill 3 never stops and so you're left wanting more and more from the game and story itself -- something that makes you want to play it even more and if you've already beaten the game, you'll find yourself wanting to go through it a second or third time just to experience the story of the game, which is both simple yet complex, as mentioned before.
Controls for Silent Hill 3 are pretty basic and there's virtually no learning curve if you've played any of the previous installments (which hopefully you have). The only difference is the way the menu is laid out but otherwise you will feel comfortable when it comes to using weapons and the various items you collect throughout the game.
Overall Silent Hill 3 is a game that any fan of the series, or the survival horror genre should play. If you enjoyed the original or the second game in the series then you will love this one. In my personal opinion, Silent Hill 3 takes what made the first two games so good and kicks it up a few notches -- making it deeper, darker, and scarier than the others, plus the main character being a female is a refreshing change from the all-male lead character streak that is seen in the other games.
So if you enjoyed the other games, or you're new to the genre, Silent Hill 3 is definitely the way to go and you should spend the extra money to go out and buy it at your local used game store if you can.