Capcom's "heavy metal action game" can be defined in one word: Stylish!!
The first impression I got from it was truly jaw-dropping. The way Dante rips through dozens of demons in Mission 1 cutscene and right after, there you are, in the heat of the battle is an intense feeling that will stick to you for a while. Right from the beginning you notice you'll have a tough journey ahead and although it gets easier on the way (more on that later), it never actually gets too easy. The mission layout for the whole game is quite standard and never deviates much from a same formula. Due to that, it's a bit unfortunate that the rush you feel in the beginning wears off a little after a few hours playing (it got to me by Mission 8). Not that I'm complaining or anything, that formula works marvelously and even after beating the game, you will keep coming to the same missions over and over again because it's just plain awesome whack those demons in dozens of different ways, since you'll have a large array of weapons, styles and combinations of these to mess with.
I won't delve much on Dante's different styles and weapons, nor the customization system. I'll just say that altering between melee weapons and firearms (Rebellion and Ebony and Ivory, although not that powerful, feel so right!) feels a lot better than it did in DMC1 and changing weapons mid-combo is one hell of an addition.
The sheer sense of style comes from the blend of gameplay and music. Mixing moves, combos and weapons increase your "style" bar, and that affects directly your rank for each mission. Although high ranks only account for more red orbs (which you use to buy more moves and power-up your ranged weapons), there's a feeling of pride that comes from achieving an S or SS rank in a mission. All that to the sound of some heavy goth/death metal which feels just right in the heat of the action (and is somewhat a personal style for me as well ^^) intertwined with ambient sounds when you're exploring the environment.
Much has been said about this game difficulty. I like hard games, and this is one of then, but it's definitely not the hardest game I've ever played by any means (I suppose, at least this gen, I give that to Ninja Gaiden...)
I've played through the whole game in Normal mode and I'm pretty sure I'd be ashamed if I had turned to Easy when I reached the end. The game has quite a steep learning curve since some gameplay aspects are not as intuitive as you'd expect, but once you get the hang of it (it happened to me after being killed by Agni and Rudra - Mission 5 boss - close to ten times), things get a lot easier. Not that you're not gonna keep dying, you will, and a lot, but "regular" enemies hardly ever will give you a game over screen, they'll just leave you crippled enough so that this will happen at a level's boss fight. And considering that most levels do have a boss and you'll hardly kill it before three attempts, that's still a lot of deaths. Be ready to play the same level over and over again. There are some itens to help you, recovering life and giving you continues among other stuff, but using these will lower your rank in a mission. But don't worry, hardly ever will be a chore to play a level again, since they're so much fun, and you can always try to be more stylish in a second play.
All in all, the graphics are good and maybe they even were amazing back in 2005, but these days they're nothing revolutionary. Except for a spot in near the end of the game it runs fluid with no slowdowns at all. The cutscenes are amazing and give Dante a whole different personality than presented in DMC1 and even though most are ridiculously over-the-top, one can understand that it was Capcom's intentions. The plot holds together tightly and the cutscenes are never too lenghty (some of them even feel a little short), popping-up every boss battle and in the end of each mission, and as it has been said in Gamespot's own review for this game, they give the player a feeling of being rewarded for surviving that mission.
Even though I hadn't had the chance to go back to the game after beating it, there seems to be some amount of extra stuff (costumes and difficulty levels) and even though these wouldn't qualify a game too high for "value", just the fact that you will want to play it again several times pushed me into giving a 10 for this item.
For my closing comments, I must say that I have NO relevant complaints about Devil May Cry 3, I even go as far as putting it in the ranks of gems like Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid 3. There's a special kind of feeling that games as great as those give the player, and DMC3 definitely is one more on this list.
PS: I give this game two "special awards": Best Theme Song Ever (Devils Never Cry) and Best... Credits Roll! Believe me, you'll understand when (and if =p) you get there ^^