F3AR offers many gameplay experiences, and a solid single player experience; but like a summer movie, nothing amazing.
I can save you some time if you are someone who hasn't played any FEAR game before and are reading this review. Don't bother buying FEAR 3 if you haven't played through the first game. One reason is the first is superior, the other is that the story won't make sense. FEAR 3 has a well written story, but the narrative will only last through the short 6 hour campaign. To pack in the entire plot in such limited time, it seems there is absolutely no regard for bringing players new to the franchise up to speed. The story caters to the hardcore FEAR fans who played through the two previous games, AND the "Reborn" DLC, which actually is critical to avoiding an otherwise huge plot-hole. FEAR 3 is easily the most narrative-driven of all the FEAR games, and it is a gripping narrative. The only problem with having such a great story penned by a talented writer, is this writer wasn't present in making the previous games, and thus there is a bit of a disconnect in terms of the characters and their behaviors compared to previous games. It is the natural result of a story being continued with the perspective of someone not involved in writing for the original games. As a result, veterans of the series might not like the subtle changes in some character behavior, but it isn't half as bad as it could be.
Playing single-player as Point Man is the closest to the traditional FEAR experience. You have a super-dooper reflexes you can use to make time appear to move slower, and everything else look 200 times more awesome. These super-human reflexes are the only counter-balance to even the fight against some of the most intelligent AI ever used in a FPS game. Enemies will react to suppressing fire- keep their heads down if you spray machine gun bullets in the direction. Enemies will also suppress you by laying down on the trigger, in order to cover another enemy who is flanking you based on your location. Enemies will also throw grenades behind the cover you are near to flush you out, especially when there is no way to flank around your cover. The enemy behavior makes every encounter challenging and satisfying. They are so reactive to your behavior, simply taking cover in different places at the same point in a level will cause the fight to play out in a completely different way.
There is also a brilliant cover system called "Active cover." It is basically the Gears of War system in first-person. You simply press a button and you will stick to a piece of cover, and can easily use the control stick to peak over, or around to shoot, and slip back into cover quickly and effortlessly. You can also vault over cover, or instantly switch which side of the cover you are on by pressing the "take cover" button immediately after pressing the vault button. The cover system allows you to meet the challenging AI which will constantly move to hit you from the most vulnerable angle. All the gameplay elements at Point-Man's disposal culminate into an FPS gameplay that controls extremely well and plays fluidly/dynamically.
Than there is Fetell. Once you beat a mission Single-Player (or if playing cooperatively with something else) you can play as Paxton Fetell, your cannibalistic sibling. Fetell has supernatural powers. You can blast enemies with a simple ranged attack meant to substitute for him having a weapon. Fetell can also possess other enemies, gaining their weapons and abilities. He can suspend enemies in air, than use the melee button to burst enemies into a bloody mist like they were popcorn in the microwave. These abilities of Fetell are fun, but they aren't enough, and get tiresome after playing as Fetell alone through a couple levels. You can only burst enemies into a bloody mist so many times before it gets boring, and that is usually after one or two levels.
Playing as Fetell by yourself is distinctively different than playing as Fetell with a partner. Possessing enemy soldiers feels less like playing a watered-down version of Point Man (no slo-mo) and more as an opportunity to work together and flank enemies by possessing a soldier in the rear while your partner distracts them. Fetell can possess a sniper in a balcony to give his partner support fire, or even possess one of the demented suicide-bomber enemies with c4 strapped on their chest, to use the detonation early against a horde of advancing maniacs. Fetell also gets an additional ability to do a shockwave that damages enemies in a radius around whenever the co-op partner playing Point Man activates slo-mo.
So all in all, being able to play as two different characters will not be enough to make you want to go through single player campaign twice to experience each one, but the characters together make going through once alone and once with a friend two exciting experiences. Multiplayer also has that same diversity. There are a whopping four modes and none of them belong to the ridiculous CoD standardized set that is expected these days, because god forbid there be a game not designed to be deathmatch compatible.
The stand out in the multiplayer is EASILY "F'in Run" or something similar, I'm sure you get it (communist-nazi-fascist-socialist-pinko's at gamespot won't let me write the actual title). The concept is simple; you and several teamates ( 2 player splitscreen or up to 4 online) have to fight through enemies down a linear path as fast as they can in order to avoid a wall of tornado-like death and whirling debris following you, like a slow moving explosion. Playing this mode online is awesomely frantic, and online you'll hear just about every player yelling the gamemode title into the mic at their teamates because a single team member getting killed means the entire team loses.
The other stand out mode is a zombie-hold out mode, that has its roots in the kind of "survival-zombie" gameplay that many games have adapted. To make this mode unique, Alma wanders around the map, and looking at her spells trouble for the person she looks back at, making him or her vulnerable, and therefore at the mercy of the rest of the team. Additional weapons must also be scavanged in between waves, so teams must plan a scavaging route to get the maximum amount of firepower within the limited scavange time. It's a mode that owes a lot to Counter-Strike Zombie mods, Call of Duty Zombie modes, and Killing Floor. Though on its own, the mod isn't as well fleshed out- its pretty dam good as 1/4th of an entire multiplayer experience.
The last two multiplayer modes are deathmatch and infection modes with a twist. One has players as ghosts admist a large battle between computer controlled AI, and players can posses the NPC's in order to gain their weapons and kill other players. This mode is frantic, even when you have only 2 players, because there are a dozen enemies, each being routinely taken over and used as pawns of the ghostly players. The other mode works the same, but not all the players are ghosts- rather, players try to stay alive as human characters as long as they can against hordes of enemies, while dead players become ghosts and try to take out their former teamates.
These multiplayer modes aren't fleshed out enough to play any particular one for more than a couple hours at a time without getting bored, but there's a lot of them, and even if you only play each one for 2 hours, you are getting a campaign-amount of playtime added to your value. All modes are also 4 players max, which makes it easy to switch between game modes if you have a party together- no one has to get kicked out, and no mode requires more players than the other (they can all be played single-player practice as well, but aren't nearly as fun that way. 2 players multiplayer or split-screen at LEAST is a must for enjoyment.)
So yeah, FEAR 3 is good, but not great. The only amazing thing about it is the sound design, which is so ridiculously awesome it is genuinely weird how much effort improportionally went into the sound design for the single player as opposed to everything else.
I give FEAR 3 a 7.5- and it is worth buying if you are a fan of the series only. People new to the series could probably get better value out of the original, or a longer single player experience out of the second. Given my reviews for the earlier games: FEAR was a 9.0, and FEAR 2 was a 8.5 with me,- FEAR 3 is a typical downward slide for trilogies. But considering it was Day One studios that created FEAR 3, I am pleasantly surprised they managed to end the series on a good note. I mean, Day One developed Perseus Mandate, which was a HORRIBLE game, and not worthy of being a FEAR expansion pack.
So Kudos to you, Day One, you made a game that didn't suck, and actually, one that I felt was worth buying at full price!
Final Score: 7.5