Saints Row 3.5 is a retrospective of the franchise jammed into a standalone Matrix inspired DLC.
They actually took a lot of the customization options out to make room for new things. The thing that annoys me the most is they removed the super-hero costume separate pieces (that were for some reason included in the last game that you did NOT have super powers for). The costume is still there as a one piece suit, which is very limiting in the way it can be colored. Customization is very half-assed in Saints Row since I guess your just supposed to put on a hotdog costume or be naked and that's just as much thought as your supposed to put into it.. (-_______-)
This game is very heavily Matrix based, so don't expect it to be a superhero game. Guns are still very much utilized as they were in Matrix, powers are only a secondary defense in place of grenades/molotovs (which are now absent).
Cars...are in this, there are a couple different ones, I was happy to see the Hollywood (50's tail-fin car) is back (my favorite from SR2). Also Monster trucks FINALLY, why were they not in SR3!? The Atlasbreaker returns and doesn't suck now with improved suspension and SR3's car crush ability! If you find a car you want, no more taking it to a garage to save it, just press down on the D-pad and it's in your garage. I found this useful to save the alien vehicles during notoriety, hop in and save real quick and it will be waiting for you later. To redeem any vehicle go to your phone and load the one you want, you'll be instantly in the car of your choosing. ...however cars are now only a novelty, with the speed and lack of confusion it takes to simply run and hop over roadways there's little reason to even get in a car. After unlocking everything I found that a few boats have returned as well, which I thought I had heard from Volition weren't returning, but they're in there. And there are some flying things, Syrus's black VTOL is in here, and the UFOs which control the same. The phone delivery works with flying things and even loads you up in the air ready to go. You cannot just fly or hover in SR4 even at full power, so VTOLs still have some use.
I tried to pace myself with SR4 since I've heard it's storymode is shorter then SR3's. This is true, but basically only because SR3 used side missions to flesh out it's storymode, where as SR4 puts side missions off to the side to be done at your leisure. The story is a Matrix-inspired retro look at the franchise, which I partly understood. I never played the first game so the Vice Kings and SR1 references were lost on me. It was cool to fight the Brotherhood, Samedi, and Ronin again. The missions are fun but can get a little too hectic which will freeze the system sometimes when TOO MUCH is spawning and exploding at one time. Save often, like everytime you finish a mission. My first freeze was before I even had powers yet after buying my first gun, I was afraid it would be a common issue but I froze only 3 times in 9 days of playing, and always during missions where a million enemies spawn at once.
The worst part for me 9 days of pacing myself and I'm done with the story, and it doesn't feel like it will have the replay value of The Third. There are no gangs in free play, only police for one notoriety bar, and then aliens with all types of anti-super tech to "balance" the game. I'm SUPER though I don't want to be balanced, I want to be unique, more powerful! I want to crush the opposition! but they have robots and super-beasts and power-neutralizing grenades. It's just not as fun to fight these aliens as it was to fight the police and military from SR3. The unit that takes the most fun out of notoriety fights is the rolling robots (you'll see) they have ONE weakness on the back of a rotating turret, so you have to stop what your doing and hit that spot and then there's 2 more behind you. I have found another weakness though, if you walk up to them centered and then dash toward, it will move them a few feet and they explode. still I hate enemies that require such specific methods to remove, it hinders they whole free for all feeling of being super-powered against the opposition. I would have liked maybe an immunity code, or at least classic notoriety without aliens.
Overall I dunno, I just don't think it has the replay of SR3. I'd think with super-powers it would be awesome, but it just felt like an extreme-mod of SR3 with some of the more fun bits of 3 replaced. Had this been a DLC it would have been amazing, but it's just not as great of a standalone.